Tuesday, 3 February 2004

Dean getting creamed in exit polls

Taegan Goddard has the exit poll roundup from five states, duplicated below:

South Carolina: Edwards 44, Kerry 30, Sharpton 10
Oklahoma: Edwards 31, Kerry 29, Clark 28
Missouri: Kerry 52, Edwards 23, Dean 10
Delaware: Kerry 47, Dean 14, Lieberman 11, Edwards 11
Arizona: Kerry 46, Clark 24, Dean 13

If these results hold up (a big if, given the poor exit polling performance in New Hampshire), predictions of a delegate-free Tuesday for Howie look strong and—realistically—Edwards is the only candidate who can claim to have a shot at unseating Kerry, although Clark may have an outside chance depending on how he does in the caucus states.

Update: Wonkette! reports that the Columbia Journalism Review is throwing a hissy fit:

Political Wire did the same thing in New Hampshire, though nobody raised a peep. Some readers have written in to suggest that since National Review's The Corner, and Political Wire, are blogs, rather than more traditional news outlets, and since they likely did not have contracts with the poll organizers, they're bound by different rules than, say, The Washington Post. By the standards of contract law, that may be true. But in terms of journalistic ethics, it's a copout. Once the numbers are out there, they're out there, and possibly influencing voters who haven't yet made it to the polls.

And that the culprits are blogs, and not networks, doesn't let them off the hook.

WHO THE FUCK CARES? Ahem. Thank you, I just needed to get that off my chest. (Dan Drezner has the sober response more properly befitting an academic.)