Rasmussen on the NH Mistake, and the Power of Story

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

In this post I relay Rasmussen’s preliminary report on why they got New Hampshire wrong.  Their explanation is not simple or single-faceted.  I also offer some reflections on the power of simple narratives.

I don’t like “stories” when it comes to campaigns.  I don’t like, for example, to be told that “the women of New Hampshire” were “moved” by Clinton’s “teary-eyed moment.”  This is too quick, too easy, too lazy, and too insulting.  It makes too many people’s jobs — pundits, reporters, campaign staffs — less taxing for me to believe it is really getting at the truth.  The truth might be more mundane, less psychological, messier . . . and above all, the truth might not fit into anyone’s “story” about this or that “campaign”.

But never mind.  The media, which needs a story, seems to have decided that Clinton won New Hampshire because of her “teary-eyed moment.”  This is the story that the major media seem to be settling on, and this is the conclusion Clinton herself seems to have drawn.  The narrative, therefore, about this campaign will likely be one about “Clinton showing she is human,” or “I listened to you and in the process I found my own voice” or “That crying really seemed genuine. I’ll bet she spent hours thinking about it beforehand.”

That this is not the whole story seems not to matter.  That, in fact, there are much more mundane reasons for the discrepency between polling techniques and voter turn-out — reasons that don’t create “a story” or define a “candidacy” or advance a “narrative”, in any kind of way that would be of easy assistance to reporters and pundits working on deadlines, or to candidates and their staffs in want of a “theme” — seems not to be getting much notice in the media.

But I want to point out that Rasmussen Reports has issued a prelimary report on why they got New Hampshire wrong.  Their initial conculsions are messy, multi-faceted, and advance no narrative.  These conclusions will not be of much use to those in need of a “storyline”.

Rasmussen’s report lists several possible factors, and begins with the observation that the media narrative about Clinton’s victory might not be entirely wrong.  “First, there may truly have been very late changes in the race.”  

Hillary’s tearing-up moment may have played a role (another powerful moment came in the debate on Saturday night where the only woman in the race reminded everyone that she embodies change). There is some evidence to support this theory, even if we only recognize it in hindsight.

Note that this phrasing does not seem at all points to be in agreement with the single-minded simplicity of the “story” we are being handed by those who, as a matter of professionsal survival and ease, must have a narrative to sell about he election process, the candidates, and the millions of people who, for their own reasons, vote for one candidate or another.

The New York Times, in promoting the narrative, found “several New Hampshire women” who noted Clinton’s “moment”:

Several New Hampshire women, some of them undecided until Tuesday, said that a galvanizing moment for them had been Mrs. Clinton’s unusual display of emotion on Monday as she described the pressures of the race and her goals for the nation – a moment Mrs. Clinton herself acknowledged as a breakthrough.

How long it took to find these “several New Hampshire women,” the Times does not say.

Maureen Dowd asked “Can Hillary Cry Her Way to the White House?” — adding a sarcastic tone to the accepted narrative.

Clinton herself fitted the “moment” into her “story”:

“I had this incredible moment of connection with the voters of New Hampshire and they saw it and they heard it. And they gave me this incredible victory last night,” she said during an interview with CBS.

In other words, the dispute is not over whether Clinton “had this incredible moment of connection with the voters of New Hampshire” but over the evaluation of the “meaning” of this “moment”.  The debate has hardened into an argument over whether “women” are being affected by Clinton’s “moment”.

That all of this might be missing the point, seems not to matter.  

Rassmusen: “First, there may truly have been very late changes in the race.”  There may be some truth to “this theory”, and there may not.  Rasmussen also notes:

Another possibility is that the polls simply understated Clinton’s support. At one level, Clinton’s campaign organization may have been great at getting out the vote. One analyst noted that “The Clinton turnout operation in Manchester their strongest area, was very good, and turnout soared 33% over 2000. In Rochester-Dover-Somersworth, another strong Clinton area, turnout was up 94% from 2000.” That could account for a several percentage points, but not the ten point gap between our final poll and the actual results.

And further:

The problem may also have resulted from the greatest challenge in polling–determining who will actually show up and vote. This is especially difficult in a Primary Election. It is possible, perhaps likely, that the polling models used by Rasmussen Reports and others did not account for the very high turnout experienced in New Hampshire. Rasmussen Reports normally screens out people with less voting history and less interest in the race. This might have caused us to screen out some women who might not ordinarily vote in a Primary but who came out to vote due to the historic nature of Clinton’s candidacy. The final Rasmussen Reports poll anticipated that 54% of the Democratic voters would be women while exit polls showed that number to be 57%.

To this extent, the polls were merely mistaken.

All polling organizations “screen out” voters that they think are not motivated to vote in the primary.  These folks never appear in the numbers, in the first place.  That Rasmussen is admiting that its own “likely voter model” may well have underestimated Clinton support does not fit in well with the “this incredible moment of connection” story about the events in New Hampshire.

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There is a lesson here in the value of not accepting any story — in the value of prefering the messy facts of the observable.  From McCain’s “centrist appeal” and “refreshing candor” to Huckabee’s “appeal to the religious grassroots” for “whites” to “African Americans” who “don’t believe a black man can win” and Obama’s “hope” and “false hope” to white men “turned off” by Clinton’s “lack of emotion” and Edwards’s “anger” . . . these are all “stories”.  We believe them at our peril.

The extent to which we let the major media, and the candidates whom they cover, tell America what America thinks, is the extent to which we grant them power over us.  Stories have a way of becoming “what happened” and “what was always going to happen”.  They have a way of becoming self-fulfilling prophecies, and, ultimately, the history we tell each other about why we chose as we did.

That all of this starts out as illusion, and that we all have a choice in accepting it, is not part of the story.  But I really wish we could all keep it in mind.