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Poll PositionsJeff Greenfield takes readers' questions on the New Hampshire screw-up and how the media cover the primaries.

Posted Friday, Jan. 11, 2008, at 2:19 PM ET

Slate contributor Jeff Greenfield, CBS News' senior political correspondent, was online at Washingtonpost.com on Jan. 10 to discuss the media's New Hampshire polling screw-up, speculation of the presidential race, and other complexities of the primary races.

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Jeff Greenfield: Uh ... I'm not sure how John McCain fits this scenario.

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Arlington, Va.: I read just now that Senator Kerry is endorsing Obama. Why haven't we heard from the candidates now out of the race (Dodd, Biden, Richardson) about endorsements? As a fan of all three of them, I would be very interested to have their input.

Jeff Greenfield: My hunch is, you will ... maybe they'd like to spend a few days—or weeks—on a beach.

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Hartford, Conn.: Hi Jeff. I always enjoy your commentary. Would it be fair to say in a general election that if the Republicans don't do something about there anti-immigration dialogue that is offensive to Hispanic Americans, California, Texas, New Jersey and Illinois are going to be hard to win? As a Hispanic American there are a lot of us who live there and are turned off by the anti-immigration or illegal immigration language.

Jeff Greenfield: This is one of the Great Unknowns ... there is some evidence (A New Yorker piece some weeks back detailed this) that immigration is a powerful issue for Republicans in Iowa and South Carolina, but perhaps not nationally. It didn't seem to help Romney in either of the first two states. One caution: there are Democratic voters for whom this issue is troublesome—I heard a lot of comments in Iowa about this topic. Some of the negative feeling on illegal immigration is not nativist, but an economic concern that an increased supply of unskilled labor drives down wages for the unskilled in general.

It's probably true that the anti-immigration theme of California Gov. Pete Wilson's 1994 re-election hurt Republicans as far as the Hispanic vote in that state goes—but remember, in 2003, Ah-nold came out strongly against drivers' licenses for illegal immigrants, and won the Hispanic vote (those here for two or three or four generations, I think).

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Ellicott City, Md.: "Everybody knows" what happened to John McCain in South Carolina in 2000, but all I've ever heard were rumors of push-polling. Has anything ever been documented or traced back to the Bush campaign, or is it still just rumors?

Jeff Greenfield: As far as I know, there was no "smoking gun" that linked back to the Bush campaign. What did happen was more than push-polling: Fliers and talk radio conversations charged McCain with everything from having become a "Manchurian candidate" to fathering a child—a black child in some of the talk—out of wedlock. And one faculty members at a religious institution charged McCain on the record with adultery, and when challenged said something to the effect of: "Can you prove he didn't?" It was as ugly as anything I've seen—and, by the way, my hunch is there will be less of it this time. A lot of Palmetto State Republicans were powerfully shamed.

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Germantown, Md.: Jeff ... what the media describes as conventional wisdom, we are finding to be conventional idiocy. All of the factors they are churning out as reasons why Hillary won were on full display prior to the primary—not a single pundit stringed them together as possible reason why Hillary might win. Now voters have exposed their idiocy, and they want us to believe that they know why she won? Please. Why is it that a common theme gets advanced, and every pundit jumps on it as if it is their original thought?

Jeff Greenfield: You know Sen. Eugene McCarthy's line on the press? "One blackbird flies and lands on the telephone line, they all land. One flies away, they all fly away." (I'm paraphrasing here. But do consider—it's way easier to figure what happened after it happens. I may (wretched sports metaphor alert!) get it completely wrong about the Yankees beating the Red Sox in '04, but afterward I confidently can cite A-Rod's meltdown and Kevin Brown's choke.) But let me chime in with you on a point I saw firsthand: watching the debates in a huge press room with hundreds of people gives you no real sense of how people are watching—or how they will see the highlights on the news. So Clinton's passionate argument for her campaign was seen as "shrill" (I'm including a lot of women journalists in the room) and it appears as if the "real people" watching had a different take.

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Des Moines, Iowa: Why didn't Wyoming get the same attention as New Hampshire? Similarly, why isn't Nevada deemed as important as South Carolina?

Jeff Greenfield: Do you know how long it takes to get to Wyoming from New York or Washington? (More seriously, there's a 56 year history of New Hampshire as a lead primary ... I have a hunch that not that many folks participated in the Wyoming caucuses. By the way, did anyone think it just a bit odd that Romney said "thank you, Wyoming!" in his post-primary speech?)

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Plainsboro, N.J.: Jeff: Honored to be "talking" to you. Re: "Oh, waiter, two orders of crow, please. This is what happens when you ignore your own advice to let the people vote first." (Your addendum to the Slate piece.) Very gracious of you. How long do you think it takes for the press to forget the lessons (and the orders of crow they had to eat) from New Hampshire?

Jeff Greenfield: Two weeks, I think I said a few moments ago. But in fairness, I think different outlets and individuals will do better—or worse. Maybe we could rig up a device—like an electronic shock bracelet to the leg or other body part of any journalist who began to say or write: "a new poll..." Could somebody check with the ACLU on this?

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Bowie, Md.: Jeff you've been around politics a long time and you know the subject inside and out. So let me ask this: Why, as a society, as citizens, do we continue to allow ourselves to be "sold" on candidates via their personalities and telegenics, as opposed to actually pushing them for answers to how they will approach real problems? Why do we and the media continue to allow their campaigns to lie to us (check out almost any of the claims made by any of the leading candidates ... Mitt's Dad marching with MLK I think was one claim, but plenty of others by the others). Why do we see the political process as just another sales campaign? Why do the media play sideline reporter about who is ahead and who is not and upsets, etc., when they should be pushing candidates to actually tell us what they would do about the problems this country faces? How about a new news mantra: No substance, no coverage?

Jeff Greenfield: This question is worth a book or two—I think I wrote one back around 1981. One historical note: we elect a Head of State and a head of government at the same time—we always have wanted to know more than the sum of a candidate's policies. Personality goes back to Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, even Lincoln (who was a railroad lawyer way after he was a railsplitter, but his campaign didn't really stress the lawyer thing—Bob Newhart has a whole comedy routine about Lincoln's media advisor).

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Boston: Posting your past mistakes is a thought—kind of like showing a hitter's batting average when they come up to bat. So, are you over the Mendoza line (.200) in your predictions this year? What is a good correct prediction batting average for a political pundit? How about a prediction at this point in time for who wins the Democratic and Republican presidential nominations? You can come back on down the road and we can see how you did.