Charlie Pierce: Reports of Hillary Clinton's Demise Are Greatly Exaggerated

"The staff here at the Café is fascinated by the big buzz tout les 'Toobz this morning. It comes from the new CBS News/YouGov poll showing that Bernie Sanders is ahead of Hillary Rodham Clinton in Iowa and running away over the far horizon from her in New Hampshire. The staff shrugs its shoulders and wanders off to wait on the lunch rush...

On-line polls, even well-wrought ones, are inherently dubious. On-line polls conducted in September when nobody really votes for anyone until February are the approximate equivalent of throwing rubber-tipped darts at a cast-iron dartboard. And, not for nothing, but why is Joe Biden even in this polling model? He's not running. The odds are no better than 50-50 that he will, despite the fondest dreams of the members of the campaign press and the major news operations that employ them. Why not throw Mitt Romney into the Republican survey?

Nobody's saying that the Clinton campaign isn't stuck in the mud a bit right now. But the diagnoses of imminent catastrophe seem premature."

Edited to include link: http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a37921/hillary-demise-greatly-exaggerated/