Pollster Pat Caddell Congratulated On His Accurate Predictions, Then Vastly Overestimates Clinton's Victory Margin
Reported by Ellen - April 23, 2008 -
Hannity & Colmes presented an unbalanced panel of two Republicans (Ari Fleischer and Rick Santorum) and one Democrat to discuss the results of the Pennsylvania primary last night (4/22/08). To top it off, the lone Democrat was "former Democratic pollster" Pat Caddell who can be relied upon to reinforce Republican talking points rather than refute them. Last night was no exception. Caddell joined in the FOX News meme that Barack Obama was in serious trouble, despite the fact that other news outlets have described Clinton's win as much less significant to the outcome of the race. Moments after Sean Hannity congratulated Caddell over his accurate predictions, Caddell greatly overstated Clinton's margin of victory that night. With video.
"They just didn't like what (Obama) was serving to them in Pennsylvania," Santorum said.
As Hannity suggested Clinton might win by ten points, Caddell interrupted to say, "She's going to win by bigger than that." During the show, Hillary Clinton was ahead by eight points. As this post is being written, Clinton is ahead by 10 points, with 99% of the vote in. I'm no statistics whiz but it seems highly improbable she will reach the mid-teens from just that missing 1%.
Hannity, the white supremacist sympathizer, said with bullyboy glee, "There's been a new narrative that's certainly hurting him."
Fleischer, who was the only one on the panel to express skepticism about the significance of Clinton's win, also joined the pile on. "Republicans really want to run against Barack Obama now," Fleischer said.
Hannity said, "Pat Caddell, you predicted this victory almost exactly by the margin. I've got to give you credit, my friend."
Caddell replied, "It's gonna be as big as I thought it was gonna be. It's gonna be closer, in the mid-teens... This is very serious stuff... Obama has got some major defeats coming."
Later, Caddell expressed doubt that Obama would win North Carolina. "I think we'd better watch North Carolina very carefully," Caddell said.
Not surprisingly, Caddell did not see any of this as good news. If the Florida delegate count is included, Caddell said, "(Clinton) has got a shot of coming out of this with an argument that she has won the popular vote, perhaps. If that happens, we're really headed for a mess."
