Last night Hillary Clinton won the New Hampshire Democratic primary and proved virtually every political pundit, major media outlet and well-respected poll wrong. After his win in the Iowa caucuses, a seismic shift occurred and “those in the know” thumped their chests and predicted Barack Obama was going to beat Clinton in New Hampshire by a double-digit spread. These self-proclaimed clairvoyant sources said Obama would checkerboard his way across the U.S. winning state by state and ultimately become the Democratic nominee for president. Cake walk. Most were also happy to tell anyone that would listen that the “Clinton camp” was in trouble.

Although it would be impossible for me to have visibility into every pundit, media outlet and poll, from where I stood, I didn’t hear one voice bet on Clinton except Howard Stern. Yup…the King of All Media was the only pundit I am aware of who never wavered from his prediction that Hillary would win in New Hampshire.  While everyone else in the media world adopted the herd mentality and were quick to sell Hillary down the river, Howard remained connected with the people. Wait! Aren’t the people that listen to Howard Stern a bunch of uneducated, sleeze bags? Nope. The demographic of Howard’s audience is classified as high income with a high level of education. For the record, I happen to be a huge Howard fan. And while most pundits like to get on air and hear themselves talk and pass judgment, Howard is one to listen.

Today is the second year anniversary for Howard joining Siruis. When Howard joined there were roughly 600,000 subscribers. In just over seven hundred days, Sirius now has over 8 million subscribers. Howard is credited as being the catalyst for the bulk of this increase.

I attribute the following reasons as to why Howard beat every political pundit when it came to predicting who would win the New Hampshire Democratic primary:

1. Howard has his pulse on the people…and lots of them.
2. Howard is used to being out on a limb and is comfortable being there.
3. Howard is a risk-taker as evident by his decision to move to Sirius – even though everyone thought he was crazy.
4. Howard speaks the truth with no cherished outcome. He is not afraid to say what he believes regardless of any backlash.

I often wonder what the mainstream media world would be like if there were more people like Howard Stern. The good news is people like Nancy Grace, Glenn Beck, and Lou Dobbs are pushing accountability in an unbiased manner. I’m just not sure they will ever take subject matter as far as Howard does. Probably a good thing because at the end of the day, there will only ever be one Howard Stern.

What do you think of Howard Stern?