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Florida: The “What the hell?” state
By Ned | January 28, 2008
It didn’t really surprise me that after the South Carolina primary on Saturday, where Barack Obama basically turned into a 300 story tall radioactive Japanese lizard and lay waste to Clinton’s campaign headquarters, that Clinton’s response might be something along the lines of, “Sike! That primary didn’t count! The important one is Florida, where I’m ahead.” Never mind that Florida doesn’t have any delegates.
Nor was it particularly was it particularly surprising when Clinton quickly mumbled into her sleeve something about campaigning in Florida even though both campaigns had pledged not to.
Alright, that’s not true. It was sort of surprising, but not for the reasons you might expect. When I read that, my first thought was: “Why? She’s ahead there.”
It took me a while to figure it out. This is why Clinton pays the big bucks for campaign strategists while I’m sitting here in my dorm writing this for free. Apparently the Clinton campaign’s learned an important lesson from Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina that I forgot: namely, that the polls just aren’t matching up with the actual election results. So it’s perfectly conceivable, at the very least, that Clinton may not be able to rely on just getting a victory in Florida handed to her like the polls indicate.
What does that mean for people like me, who like to make all sorts of predictions about how this race is going to turn out based on polling? Should we cut down on that and focus on more substantive issues?
Hah! Yeah, right. I’ve got a better idea: since there’s no way to make these predictions responsibly, I’m just going to be wildly irresponsible about them. No longer am I tied to things like polling data and evidence to make my predictions - instead I’m going to pronounce and prognosticate with utter conviction based on data culled from a random sampling of my Ouija board.
With that in mind, I’m willing to bet all sorts of money and humiliating acts that Ron Paul will win the Florida primary. No - Ron Paul will win both Florida primaries.
Ron Paul fans of the Internet: You’re welcome.
Topics: The Media |