The generally unreliable exit polls are available

April 22, 2008

Early exit polls have not only been wrong throughout the Democratic primaries and caucuses, they’ve also frequently been wrong in Barack Obama’s favor. Something to keep in mind.

Nevertheless, there’s an appetite for the data — what else are people going to do while waiting for results? — so here are the numbers that are bouncing around.

According to Drudge, the 5 p.m. numbers, Clinton’s up by four, 52% to 48%.

According to National Review, Obama’s up by five, 52% to 47%.

Nothing like a little contradiction to make everyone especially confused.

As Josh Marshall put it, “And to be clear, when I say take them with a grain of salt, I don’t mean that in the garden variety, being responsible, ‘we don’t know for sure yet’ kind of way. I really mean that these early unweighted numbers have routinely been way, way off.”

National Review is an androcentric magazine, so it’s not surprising that they would claim the man is winning. Female-friendly publications have Clinton ahead by 35 points.

  • You staying up late tonight Mr. Carpetbagger?
    This post surprised me.
    You must have a good dose of election night anticipation tingles…

  • brasscupcakes: Insane Fake Professor is a parody of Mary, one of the loonier Hillbots that frequent this blog.

  • Insane Fake Professor said:

    National Review is an androcentric magazine, so it’s not surprising that they would claim the man is winning. Female-friendly publications have Clinton ahead by 35 points.

    Wrong again. Bodacious Tatas Magazine only has her up by two, but they point out firmly that these are early data.

  • This quote from TPM election central:

    The Hillary campaign sends out some startling facts about Obama’s ad spending in Pennsylvania, including this one: The average viewer in PA would have been exposed to more than 100 viewings of an Obama spot.

    Waiting for the Clinton clowns to argue that his ability to raise money and run ads decreases his electability.

    Come on Clinton clownies… step up to the plate.
    Define your “electability” variable according to the terms of your mental illness:
    Money raising bad. Going broke good.

  • ROTFLMLiberalAO – gotta remember – its all about DISTRACTIONS!!!!

    Even most brain-dead American couch-potatoes can see that a bush-clinton-bush-clinton dynasty is not a good thing.

    That’s why shillary has to run such a nasty, crappy campaign – her candidacy needs to be rejected outright because if America wanted more of the criminal bush-cabal, they should just vote for mcsame.

  • little bear said:
    Even most brain-dead American couch-potatoes can see that a bush-clinton-bush-clinton dynasty is not a good thing.

    Well it wouldn’t be so bad if you left the bush parts of it out. Are you saying that Bush and the Clintons are of the same value? That’s just not true.

  • Dale – They certainly answer to the same masters – just look at shillary’s voting record in the senate – could you really be more in sync with the chimp?

    People forget how bill took the dems to the right – so far so, that he immediately lost congress and spent the rest of his terms triangulating and appeasing the folks that brought us dur chimpfurher.

  • Oh, do give over, ROTFLetc, @9;

    They’re just covering their arses in the typical “the wise-woman predicted two ways: either yes, or no”. If they lose or tie or win by just the tiniest margin, they can say “yeah, but see the obscene amount of money he’d spent to get there”. And, if they win by 10% or more, they can say: “see, he poured all that money down the drain; it still didn’t help him any”.

    And it *is* an obscene amount of money and I do wonder how effective it’s likely to be to have viewers exposed to hundreds of ads, with one coming every few minutes. Ads are the reason I don’t even watch the Comedy Central (unless I’m visiting my son, who has an ad-stripping something-or-other and records a whole bunch of Colbert and the Daily Show for me). The only thing ads are good for is giving one the time off to go and fix another cup o’T or take a leak.

    And yeah, I’m babbling to kill the time 🙂 According to NYT, which, between its front page and the live-blogging on the Caucus, tends to be the fastest as well as most accurate posting results, we’re not to expect *anything* before 21:00 and nothing much before 22:00. I wish Steve hadn’t said it was going to be a short night; I “knew” that prediction was going to pox the timing of the returns…

  • TPM has Hillary about 7points ahead. What an anticlimax. Hillary wins by about what we thought she would and nothing is resolved.

    little bear we fell into the fallacy of thinking there wasn’t mush difference between Dem and Repulicans in 2000. We don’t ever want to unlearn that lesson. The differences are huge, even with a Clinton as the Dem.

    I hate the way Hillary has campaigned but we wouldn’t be saying that if Obama didn’t come along and inspire us.

  • Dale – don’t say “WE” – and if you look at shillary’s voting record – she has marched in lockstep with the chimp. At least with Nader, it was clear he did not support chimpy’s policies – the record is clear – shillary mostly has.

    A vote for her is a vote for the bush-clinton-bush-clinton dyanasty and everything the criminal cabal behind it stands for.

    • Comments are closed.