probabilityfields

The consensus among the articles I’ve read is that women, being so emotional and wishy-washy, came to the aid of their distressed sister in her time of need and gave her the votes.

Seriously?

Okay, I’m no expert, but I can think of a much better explanation. First of all, women probably didn’t suddenly decide to come out and vote just because Hillary forced a tear out of her head. That’s ridiculous.

Second, look at the Republican winner. John McCain won by a decent margin, and where did he get all those votes? Probably not from many hard line Republicans. McCain doesn’t pander to Evangelists, and some Bushies still consider him a traitor to the party.

So where? Independent voters. New Hampshire has an open primary, which means any registered voter can vote in either the Republican or Democratic primary. But I seriously doubt anyone was torn between McCain and Hillary. I’d bet that a big chunk of McCain’s votes were from people who might have voted for Obama.

All the criticisms of Obama’s performance are correct (overconfident), and Hillary did a good job too, but McCain’s great performance was probably what hurt Obama the most.

Prediction:
The defeat will be good for Obama because he’ll drop the overconfidence and get back to business. Most importantly he’ll start attacking Hillary’s health care plan. John Edwards will continue to steer votes away from Hillary (but not to him). Huckabee and Giuliani will make a comeback in less educated states and McCain will slip.

Obama/Edwards versus Huckabee/???.