When pollsters attempt to divine election outcomes, a minimum number of people are required to make the survey statistically sound. It varies from pollster to pollster, but let's assume 1000 responders are needed. Now think about this. How many people simply hang up the phone or don't answer? This alone makes it difficult. Now toss in voters who really don't know or don't have a grasp of the issues.

Figure this number to a multiple of 20. So to get 1000 responses, they need 20,000 calls to likely voters. It may be even more. It really is a daunting task.

Yet none of this takes into account one of New Hampshire's favorite and little understood sports - mucking it up.

I know this may be tough to fathom but folks in New Hampshire have a sense of humor and more than a bit of contrariness. They think the ultimate poll happens when you close the curtain to the voting booth. So anything else is useless. A waste of time that runs against the typical New England frugality and as such it is easily the target for a little teasing.

So how does this happen?

A phone call comes in. It is a political survey. The New Hampshire voter quickly assesses the caller. Is it Democratic? Republican? Some outside the state group trying to influence the election? Once assessed, the MU (Mucker Upper) decides what the pollster is looking for and then says the opposite. For example, in one call I got, I described myself as a 35 year old fundamentalist Christian, Native American woman, with 8 kids, extremely conservative, making over $250,000 a year and gave Dennis Kucinich the highest favorable rating. Mike Huckabee was given the lowest. The goal is to totally mislead the pollster. Then the pollster releases the findings, the pundits pontificate on their findings, and the election is held.

They got it all wrong.The nation is stunned. The pundits try to cover their tracks and the good people in New Hampshire enjoy a very quiet, but very fulfilling chuckle. We mucked them up again. It's as old as those New England farmer jokes.

Did I tell you the one about old Ephraim and the flatlander from New Yorker?