Dear Editor,
I thank Clinton Urling for the confidence and faith he has shown in my polling and political analysis in letter captioned ‘Bisram usually gets it right’ (SN, May 16). He made reference to my analysis (December 2007) of the US presidential nominations and asked for my current views in light of the recent outcomes of the primary elections of the Democratic Party and what I feel will be outcome of the elections in November.
Firstly, let me praise Clinton for the civil tone of his letter which is quite unlike those of several others who recently set out to impugn my integrity and reputation. Clinton is right that I analyzed in my commentary last December that Hillary Clinton would win the nomination for the Democrats and John McCain for the Republicans. I came to that conclusion about Clinton based on conversations and interviews with Caribbean Americans and their views as expressed in the Caribbean media. For all analysts, Clinton was a shoo-in for the Democrats, as indeed all polls showed at the time. However, something went wrong and she was upset by Obama in the first of 56 contests in January in Iowa. She was further humiliated in February in what came to be known as Super Tuesday. After the Iowa loss, I penned she would survive and still win the nomination. Before Super Tuesday, Clinton had more pledged and superdelegates combined than Obama, although he had more victories than her. Urling felt Obama would win the Democratic nomination and go on to become the president. We held different views but respected each other.