Planet Abell

Joust Originally uploaded by _mpd_ L ots of humility today from pundits and pollsters about how wrong the New Hampshire polls were on the Democratic side -- from Chris Matthews soulfully telling Clinton's communications director "I will never underestimate Hillary Clinton again" to John Zogby 's instant analysis that "We seem to have missed the huge turnout of older women that apparently put Clinton over the top." In an interesting little item on the Huffington Post a commenter observes: "No one is talking about how the polls actually nailed Obama's number. Obama didn't lose this election. He stayed steady and Hillary surged ahead." Many narratives will be challenged in the coming days and will be replaced by other convenient narratives. Among the most curious, and none-too-subtle, is that the bulk of spot reporting appears to assert that Clinton's victory was a "surprise." This, even though there is no evidence that Clinton ...

T his is a question about balance, but it may sound insensitive: was Elizabeth Edwards' medical news worthy of a national press conference? Early in the day The Politico , (which righteously tells all here ) broke the story that a change in Mrs. Edwards' The specter of something coming out of left field rightly put media outlets on "Stop the Presses" mode. But Edwards knew what the announcement would be -- sad, but not landscape-altering. health -- whatever it was -- would prompt her husband to abandon or at least suspend his presidential campaign. That's newsworthy because he is considered a serious contender for the Democratic nomination (although well behind Hillary and Obama, and in the same neighborhood as Al Gore , who is not running at all) and leads the polling in the Iowa caucuses where the first actual voting occurs, oh, years from now. The specter of something coming out of left field rightly put all media outlets on "Stop the Presses" mode. ...