In the wake of Sen. Hillary Clinton's surprise victory in the New Hampshire presidential primary Jan. 9, pollsters attributed their disastrous miscalculations to a slew of events: They cited Hillary Clinton's display of emotions at a New Hampshire campaign stop and even the specter of the Bradley Effect, in which feelings of guilt over potentially racist emotions lead to higher levels of expressed support for African Americans such as Sen. Barack Obama in polls but not in the voting booth. While all of these could have been factors, a surprising near-omission was the effect of the media and all of their polls. Indeed, throughout the 2008 primary cycle it seems that rather than objectively covering trends, the media have been creating and weaving misleading and ultimately damaging narratives.

Both Clinton and Obama have fallen victim to the insidious effect of labeling a candidate as inevitable and giving him or her an aura of invincibility. A few months ago, when Clinton held a double-digit lead in polls in New Hampshire and other key states, the media were quick to crown her the victor.

However, it was largely because of this labeling that a rather innocuous answer about her support for a New York legislation to allow illegal immigrants to hold driver's licenses snowballed into her plummet in the polls and the ultimate victory of Obama in Iowa.

Indeed, a single overly nuanced answer to a complicated question could not have been so damaging to an otherwise well-oiled campaign were it not for the the media spin; it is unlikely that Clinton's campaign would have become so desperate as to unleash a slew of poorly targeted attacks on Obama's kindergarten essay or his well-known teenage drug usage.

After his crushing victory in Iowa, Obama was a casualty of the same powerful effect. Obama won Iowa through the commanding youth turnout that was energized by his message of hope. However, when polls showed him holding a commanding double-digit lead in New Hampshire, it is likely that many supporters felt they no longer needed to turn out.

More importantly, in a state where independents could vote in either primary, the halo of inevitability ensured that many who would have voted for Obama voted for their other favorite candidate, Sen. John McCain, in the Republican primary to ensure his victory, which seemed more uncertain. It is likely that these voters at the very least made the difference between a narrow Obama victory and Clinton's comeback triumph.

Another very closely related harm comes from the unthinking assumption of labels for candidates. Clinton, for instance, is unquestionably hailed as a candidate of experience without serious examination of whether her time as first lady in the White House really qualifies as experience.

This is even more true for former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, who is running on his 9/11 experience but is never questioned on related blunders such as unduly jeopardizing the lives of firefighters in the aftermath of the attacks. The media hails McCain as a consistent maverick and therefore ignores his pandering to the extreme religious right and other unsavory groups to secure his nomination.

Meanwhile, even though he is my candidate of choice, it is equally true that Obama has been able to take hold of the mantle of change without more clearly defining what kind of change he proposes. Serious media analysis would question the labels that candidates take for themselves rather than unquestioningly propagating them.

In the aftermath of New Hampshire the mainstream media were quick to blame everything but its own actions, but its negligence has contributed to more than just Obama's surprise loss. It has substantially dummied down our level of discourse by its continuous and almost always inaccurate use of stereotypes and labels.