Jason Zengerle, stop. Just stop. Now the argument that New Hampshire will go for McCain is that ... Obama under-performed the polls during a volatile primary election. I'd note that poll Zengerle references was taken on the two days before Hillary Clinton had her famous teary-eyed moment in Portsmouth, which many observers see as the turning point of the Granite State's primary election, and that it also had a smaller sample size than either the current UNH poll or any of the other recent polls that show Obama ahead in the state.
As well, Obama hadn't been leading in the state for months but jumped ahead after his Iowa win -- a bounce that obviously turned out to be pretty soft. It was also a lesson that the Obama campaign learned, if the candidate's statements warning against complacency and citing New Hampshire are anything to go by. I'd also note that the partisan ID in the state trends Democratic, that independents prefer Obama, and that former Governor Jeanne Shaheen looks set to pull out a win over incumbent John Sununu in the Senate race. Basically, I demand that people who think McCain will win the state make any kind of argument about voter preference that does not rely on vague impressions of people being "crotchety."
--Tim "Flinty NH Voter" Fernholz
