Obama's Consolation Prize

He may have narrowly lost the NH Primary, but Barack Obama continues to dominate in cyberspace.

He wins the Yahoo! Buzz Showdown with Hillary Clinton. Check out the geographic skew on the Yahoo! search for "barack obama muslim".

He wins the YouTube battle for eyeballs. Drill down to the data here.

And he wins Facebook's popularity contest. With 200,000 "friends," as reported here in The Nation, his numbers triple Hillary's.

Have a Cigar, You're Gonna Go Far

A long-standing Portsmouth tradition is the matchbook poll at Federal Cigar on Ladd Street in downtown Portsmouth. (Customers simply drop a matchbook into a bag with their preferred candidate's name on it.) About an hour ago, the Portsmouth Herald announced the results. Herald reporters Adam Leech and Deborah McDermott report that owner Leonard Seagren claims the 24-year-running poll has an "80% success rate." Presumably that is in predicting the winners only, rather than the rankings of the entire field. Here are the results:

Republicans

Ron Paul (31 percent)
John McCain (27 percent)
Rudy Giuliani (21 percent)
Mike Huckabee (10 percent)
Mitt Romney (8 percent)
Fred Thompson (2 percent)
Duncan Hunter (no votes).

Democrats

Barack Obama (46 percent)
Dennis Kucinich (17 percent)
John Edwards (17 percent)
Hillary Clinton (13 percent)
Joe Biden (4 percent)
Chris Dodd (3 percent)
Bill Richardson (1 percent).

Decidedly low-tech and wholly unscientific, this poll remains one of my favorite things about the NH Primary in general and Portsmouth in particular. Certainly, reading the tea leaves -- or cigar ashes? -- of this poll can impart insight into the mind of the voter, and can be an early indicator of surprises and upsets, (e.g., Hart, Gary in 1984.)

Predictions

On the eve of the Iowa Caucus, KD Paine & Partners has released an update to their YouTube tracking data on the presidential hopefuls. Basically, this innovative Berlin, NH-based media measurement firm is tracking clicks on YouTube for insights into the minds of prospective voters. Katie gives a great overview on where the candidates rate on her blog. As you can see from the data, Barack Obama (pictured left, with my girlfriend Melanie) is surging. And now for my predictions:

Iowa tonight:

Republicans: Huckabee will beat Romney, with McCain a strong and surprising third.

Democrats: Obama and Edwards will finish a virtual tie, with Hillary trailing them. Biden might top the 2nd tier candidates.

New Hampshire next Tuesday:

Republicans: Again, I'm seeing a shift in support to McCain, who was left for dead in NH just a couple months ago. My sense is we New Hampshirites know Romney too well to fall for his act. Huckabee's contention that the earth is only 10,000 years old will not play here. Guiliani is simply not a Granite State kind of guy and he's seemed to mail it in here in acknowledgment of that. By process of elimination, we are left with McCain, who will win despite apparently aging 10 years in the past 4 and selling out his independent integrity by pandering shamelessly to the conservative base. Given the atrophy of support for the Republican Big 3, don't be surprised if Ron Paul taps the libertarian vein of the granite state and cracks 10%.

Democrats: Obama will win. Edwards and Hillary will be close behind 2nd and 3rd. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a solid 8-10% digit showing from a 2nd tier guy like a Richardson or a Kucinich (pictured at right, with yours truly), depending on whether the independent voters who register as Democrats for this go-'round go with pragmatic or progressive.

And yes, I do love living in New Hampshire. :-)

Yikes. No question as to what the buzz is about today. A little after 1PM, I started getting IMs popping up on my screen: "You getting this?" "Can you believe it?" Followed of course by blue-underlined links to WMUR.com and other news outlets. What I found when I clicked was both startling and baffling. There was a hostage situation at Hillary Clinton's campaign office in Rochester. He was apparently armed and said he had a bomb strapped to him.

As a former Rochester resident and Spaulding High grad, I was immediately concerned if anybody I knew was in danger. Turns out the campaign office was at 28 North Main Street... About 100 street numbers down from the home I lived in only 7 years ago! Like I said: "Yikes."

When I got home and turned on the TV, Channel 9 was reporting that the situation was resolving peacefully... Leeland Eisenberg, a man "well known to police," had given himself up, joining Lyndon LaRouche in Rochester's Hall of Shame. I'll be curious to learn his motivations, if and when they become public.

Hillary's response to all this? She appeared only minutes after the situation was defused for a press conference, calmly and gratefully thanking both law enforcement and her staffers. Now she's on her way back to NH. Her site HillaryClinton.com had a notice about the situation up on the home page and a blog entry posted at 6:53, well under an hour after the Eisenberg was arrested. Impressive situation management from her and her team.

How this will affect the NH Primary? My guess is it'll be retail politicking as usual before long, but for this weekend, it's going to be all-Hillary, all-the-time.

Now that we've got a date set for the New Hampshire Primary elections, the buzz around the Granite State is as much about politics as Christmas shopping lists. And with good reason. With the date set for January 8th--the earliest date ever--it's hot on the heals of the holiday season. Too close, some say. Retailers and candidates will be competing for media air time and shopper/voter mindshare over the coming weeks, at the risk of oversaturating a tight market for both dollars and votes.

Nevertheless, with the horse race in full stride, and the finish line now in sight, we New Hampshirites are engaging in one of our favorite sports: Handicapping. One way to handicap is by traditional polling--calling people up at dinner and asking them who they like. Hmmm... Not so good.

But KD Paine & Partners--a nationally renown media measurement firm based in Berlin, NH--is taking a more modern approach. They're tracking YouTube usage. Following the clicks as it were. Call it Polling 2.0 if you will. And they're getting some very interesting results. Let's just say Ron Paul's money bomb on Guy Fawkes Day wasn't all that surprising when you look at this data. Here's a link to the last batch of stats. The newest batch of stats, released today, has Ron Paul ahead by several lengths.

MEDIA ADVISORY: Katie Paine is available for comment. Please contact her directly for more info.

Further 2.o-ing politics, now tonight's GOP debate will be YouTubified, too, with candidates answering questions from YouTube videos like the Dems did a while back. Stay tuned.