Michael Tomasky at The Guardian, 1/27/2008:
They're not an official category of voters whose tally is measured in exit polls, like whites or blacks, women or men, old or young. And since they're not an official category, we may never really have the evidence.
But I have a feeling I know which group really handed Hillary Clinton - or maybe they were thinking even more of that other Clinton - her decisive loss to Barack Obama in South Carolina on Saturday night. Call them "high-information Democrats."
These are the people who follow all the ins and outs of the contest. They read The New York Times. They watch cable television, probably Keith Olbermann first and foremost. They read blogs. They know every twist and turn, every thrust and parry. And yes, they exist even in South Carolina.
As I said, they are not a measured category. But Obama was ahead by eight to 15 percentage points in most public opinion polls up to Friday. He won by more than that, 28 percentage points. Who accounted for this disparity? We'll need to see raw turnout numbers by region to have a better idea - according to one network exit poll Obama won a majority of college-educated voters, both white and black. I suspect that it's a plausible conclusion that high-information voters swung in Obama's direction in the contest's closing days and hours.
If I'm right, those voters were pretty clearly saying that they didn't like the kind of campaign the Clintons were running against a fellow Democrat. It's a rebuke for both Clintons that will force them to rethink their scorched-earth strategy toward Obama and that presents them with a conundrum.