Diagnostic

HRC Campaign Director, Pollster and Blackwater Consultant Mark Penn

Salon gives us a little story that just explains all the problems with HRC - entitled, tonedeaf and based in Hubris:

Be careful what you ask for

In an e-mail message sent to reporters Saturday, the Clinton campaign asked, "Where Is the Bounce"? The answer: Right here.

Team Clinton based its message, in large part, on a CNN/WMUR/University of New Hampshire poll, taken immediately after the Iowa caucuses, that showed Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama tied at 33 percent. While that tie represented four points of improvement for Obama, the Clinton team noted that the poll's margin of error meant that there had been "no statistically significant change" in the candidates' numbers "before and after the Iowa caucuses."

"Contrast that with the 17 points John Kerry gained in 2004 in the Boston Globe poll ... in New Hampshire after the Iowa caucuses. Or with the 7 points Al Gore gained in 2000 in the CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, increasing his lead in New Hampshire from 5 points to 18 points," the Clinton campaign said. "New Hampshire voters are fiercely independent. They will make their own decisions about who to support."

Maybe so. But a second CNN/WMUR/University of New Hampshire poll was released Sunday, and that one shows Obama leading Clinton 39 percent to 29 percent. Add the 10 points by which Obama leads now to the four points by which he trailed before Iowa, and you get a 14-point swing -- exactly the sort of Kerry/Gore bounce the Clinton campaign said Obama wasn't getting before.