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Don't Cry Just Yet, Obama Fans

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TIED AT THE END OF THE FIRST Clinton, Obama (Photos: Getty Images)
So much for the Obama "rout" that FCP and nearly every poll was predicting on Monday. Overnight is a long time in politics—and a week is forever. On Tuesday New Hampshire proved that with a vengeance.

As soon as I saw the "Hillary moment," I was sure it would work in her favor, simply because she suddenly seemed more authentically human than she had at any other time in the campaign. But I never suspected it would work so dramatically.

Thanks to Obama's victory in Iowa, Clinton's victory in New Hampshire is suddenly a gigantic comeback for her—instead of the foregone conclusion everybody thought it was just a couple of weeks ago.

The most depressing thing about the New Hampshire result was the possibility that it marked the reappearance of the "Bradley effect." Named for Tom Bradley, the mayor of Los Angeles and a black Democratic candidate for Governor of California in 1982 who enjoyed a comfortable lead in the polls right up to election day, it refers to the tendency of white voters to exaggerate their willingness to vote for a black candidate when interviewed by a pollster. (Bradley ultimately lost that election by less than one percent.)

As I pointed out a couple of days ago, Iowa marked the first time in memory that a black candidate in a statewide election actually did just as well as the polls had predicted he would. That was partly true because of the vast outpouring of color-blind voters under 30, who gave Obama 57 percent of their votes. On Tuesday, in Hanover, New Hampshire, the home of Dartmouth College, Obama crushed Clinton 58 to 26 percent; but in the state as a whole, the percentage of young people supporting Obama dropped to 51 percent, while Hillary nearly tripled her support in this group, from 11 percent in Iowa to 28 percent in New Hampshire last night.

The magnitude of the mistakes of many of the polls suggested that the Bradley effect was indeed at work this week. For example, a Gallup/USA Today poll released on Sunday night gave Obama 41 percent, Clinton 28, and Edwards 19. That poll underestimated Clinton's final percentage by 11 percent, and gave Obama 5 points more than he actually won.

It's clear that under-29 voters are much more willing to vote for a black candidate than their elders. The lesson of that is simple: If Obama is going to prevail, the Millenials and the Xers will have to defy the historical pattern in which young Americans have consistently voted in smaller percentages than their elders.

Younger voters did reverse that pattern in Iowa, where the under-29ers caucused in droves. On Tuesday, youthful Obama supporters were plunged into depression after Hillary's triumph. Today they need to remember that we have only just reached the bottom of the first inning—and the score is tied at 1 to 1. It is not too late for Millenials and Xers to repeat the Iowa miracle in Nevada, South Carolina, and the 22 states voting on Super Tuesday, which is now just 24 days away.

If they don't, a Democratic victory in November will guarantee eight more years of boomer hegemony over the White House.

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