An Informal Quinnipiac Poll

In an article on New Milford resident Lorella Praeli's activism in support of Barack Obama in New Hampshire you can find what I would call an informal poll of the Quinnipiac students' support for presidential candidates:

With that kind of passion and determination, the freshman cajoled McLean to let her enroll in his semester-long honors political science seminar for upperclassmen which would study and track the 2008 presidential campaign.

Selecting a candidate to endorse and participating in the New Hampshire primary are key lessons, McLean said.

Of the students in the class, he said, six are campaigning for Obama, two for Democrat John Edwards, two for Republican Mitt Romney, one for Republican Rudy Giuliani and three for Democrat Hillary Clinton.

"And I'm so proud she's in my class," McLean said.

Besides making door-to-door visits and attending campaign rallies and other events, she has proved to be the "queen of phone banking."

In the past week, Praeli and her Quinnipiac peers have caught the political fever now rampant in New Hampshire. They translated that enthusiasm into conversations with voters, trying to persuade them to see the candidates through their eyes.

It's a far more realistic lesson than anything they might glean from a textbook or lecture, McLean said.

Yes, Obama seems to have generated a lot of support from Quinnipiac's youth... But even more interesting, IMHO, is this realistic lesson in how far the republican party has fallen:

Democratic Supporters - 11
Republican Supporters - 3

Yes, it is a very small polling sample but it can't be much further off than any of the recent New Hampshire polls were.

As soon as the results started trickling in the explanations began as to how the polls could have been so wrong. Was it the voters reaction to the media’s coverage of a show of emotion from Hillary? Or could it have been those damn Diebold machines again?! On MSNBC, WaPo’s Eugene Robinson brought up one explanation that’s now being floated around: the Bradley Effect, in which people supposedly lied to pollsters about whether they would vote for a black candidate.

I wouldn't be surprised about Diebold theories or the Bradley Effect and other possibly racist statements, to be honest... This would be, after all, signs of a pretty freakin' fascist country. Then again? So are the sexist undertones in this campaign.

[minor update] for linkage... And a note: Some of the campaign statements appear to be seriously distorted by the media, IMHO, while others coming from both the media and the campaigns appear to carry genuine racist and sexist over and undertones...