New Hampshire Poll: Clinton Fizzling, Romney Sizzling

Forget all the talk about this being an election year in which the leading candidates in each party were almost certain to get the nomination.

It’s wild-card...after wild-card…with at least one campaign showing signs of extreme concern.

The news for the Demmies: Hillary Clinton’s lead has evaporated in New Hampshire (she is a contender but now is on the ropes). The news for the Republicans: former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney still has a solid lead (so he will remain very much a contender). It can be seen in this poll:

Barack Obama has chipped away at Hillary Clinton’s lead in New Hampshire, and the two Democratic presidential hopefuls are now locked in a statistical tie less than one month before the first-in-the-nation primary, a CNN/WMUR Poll released Wednesday shows.

Clinton has dropped 5 percentage points since the CNN/WMUR November survey, while Obama has gained 8 percentage points, according to the poll conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. Clinton is now at 31 percent to Obama’s 30 percent.

Part of tracking political progress is looking at polls trending. And Clinton’s trending is NOT good. Her early campaign ran almost seamlessly but, when she bungled it in a debate, the seams showed through. She comes across quite well on TV but may not have the likability factor that propelled politicos such as Ronald Reagan, JFK and, in 2000, George W. Bush to the White House.

Plus, there truly may be the fact that many Americans want a change and Clinton is hamstrung by the “dynasty issue,” just as former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush would be if he were running.

In the Republican contest, the new poll also reveals that despite Mike Huckabee’s meteoric rise in some Iowa and national surveys, he has yet to catch fire in New Hampshire. Huckabee remains in single digits at 9 percent, up 4 percentage points from November. But he still trails Mitt Romney by 23 percentage points.

And the way these primaries will hit, if Huckabee doesn’t pull off some victories early on, he won’t have the big bux needed to overcome the bankrolls of Romney and the current (but increasingly tenuous) front runner, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Romney remains in the lead with 32 percent of the vote, followed by Rudy Giuliani and John McCain who are tied with 19 percent.

CNN also pointedly notes that a whopping number of Democrats and Republicans have NOT made up their minds — so, in-effect, this race remains wide open.

Are these polling trends just par for the course? Nothing Hillary Clinton should be upset about? The normal shake-down process that occurs when a primary season opens up and the front-runner comes under the microscope?

Not exactly — because, according to the New York Daily News, former President Bill Clinton is now concerned:

Alarmed by his wife’s slide in the polls and disarray within her backbiting campaign, a beside-himself Bill Clinton has leaped atop the barricades and is furiously plotting a cure – or coup.

“She’s in big trouble and he knows it,” a top Democratic operative and Hillary Clinton booster told the Daily News.

Sources familiar with the ex-President’s thinking say he doesn’t believe his wife’s situation is desperate. But he’s unhappy with her operation – once hailed as a juggernaut – and concerned she could lose the Democratic nomination without major alterations in strategy and staffing.

Bill Clinton is mulling “a lot of different ideas and a lot of different scenarios to fix this,” an official who regularly speaks with him said. “He will come up with literally dozens of ideas. The trick will be to figure out the most important one or two to get her out of this downtrend.”

Another Democrat with close connections to the Clinton campaign describes Bill Clinton as “very engaged and very agitated. He’s yelling at [chief strategist] Mark Penn a lot.”

Penn denies he’s being yelled at, which could be true, but if it wasn’t he wouldn’t admit it to the newspaper.

And a report like this doesn’t just come out of thin air: reporters using unnamed sources will usually use solid ones.

What’s going on? Perhaps the two unsettled races reflect the fact that many Americans are looking for a fresh face – not a face they saw for 8 years, or even a face they saw who looked inspirational on 9/11. Perhaps 2008 will be similar to 1976 when voters plucked former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter out of the pack because he wasn’t the typical Democrat identified with the national battles and wasn’t a familiar face on TV.

If so, Hillary Clinton could have a tough fight on her hands: if she loses in New Hampshire, the aura of invincibility — now hanging by a thread, anyway — will evaporate. And then it’s down to bare-knuckled street fighting, which Clinton & Co could win but will provide plenty of ammunition to GOPers for the general election.

The one thing clear from polls on several fronts: the voters are still looking. Being called a “front runner” is actually meaningless right now. Too many voters are still looking around. Which is an opportunity — and also a danger…

SOME OTHER VIEWPOINTS:

–MUST READ POST OF THE DAY is James Joyner who predicts it’ll be Senator John McCain defeating Hillary Clinton in 2008. (Joyner is a highly thoughtful commentator so don’t miss this one).
–Taylor Marsh
–Ed Morrissey
–The Heretik
–JammieWearingFool
–Pollster.com
–Scrappleface (satire)