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Approaching New Hampshire’s Primary: Clarity for the Dems, Two Frontrunners for the GOP

Posted by MARK DANIELS in Politics.
Jan 7th, 2008 | Comments

New Hampshire’s Republican primary was always a must-win for Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. Now that it’s clear that Romney is going to finish a distant second behind Arizona’s senator, John McCain, Romney’s campaign is all but over. But McCain’s win in the Granite State will say the same thing that Mike Huckabee’s win in Iowa four days ago said: Republican voters either want more choices (which they won’t get) or they want more chances to choose (which are coming).

Iowa was always the ballgame for the Democratic nomination. Desperate to retake the White House, Democrats were bound to get in line behind the Iowa winner in order to focus on the general election. After Illinois’ senator Barack Obama won in Iowa, his support in New Hampshire ballooned.

Following Iowa, Obama’s win of the nomination was never in doubt. But a 10% margin of victory for the Illinois senator will make the continued campaigning of New York’s senator Hillary Clinton and former North Carolina senator John Edwards untenable. Party leaders and contributors will send them the message to back off so that Dems can save their powder for the fight with the Republican nominee.

As of Wednesday morning, the big political story will be the Republican nomination fight. A New Hampshire win for McCain will give him a big boost in subsequent primaries. Party leaders, in the party that usually rewards its nomination to the next person in succession, may swallow their dislike of the Arizona hero in order to prevent Huckabee, this year’s maverick Republican, from having a shot at the nomination.

The implosions of the Romney and Clinton candidacies are as analogous to each other as the successes of the Huckabee, McCain, and Obama campaigns have been to each other.

Both the former Massachusetts governor and New York senator were favored by old hands in their parties who believed that with the amalgamation of enough money and consultant firepower, the deficiencies of their candidates–the negative reputation of Clinton and the cynical flip-flopping of Romney, among others–could be masked or overcome and the myth of inevitability be turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Clinton obviously had the backing of her husbands’s political machine. Romney has enjoyed a lot of help from the Bush family and its allies, which has won the presidency in three of the past five national elections. Voters in the two parties, it turns out, have had something to say about the wisdom of the Clinton and Bush machines. Their message: “Nothing is inevitable. We’ll be the ones to decide who gets to be president. (At least this year.)”

Meanwhile, voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, no doubt reflecting the views of the country, in their votes for Obama, McCain, and Huckabee, have said they want civility, fresh thinking, and, dare I say it, change.

[See here, here, here, and here.]

[This will be cross-posted at Better Living: Thoughts from Mark Daniels.]

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mw

Clinton the candidate was not bad as a front runner, not great but not bad. I expect she will be a better candidate as an underdog than she was as a front-runner. We have yet to see what kink of a front-runner Obama will be. I expect his shtick could get a little tired a month or so of white hot front runner scrutiny. . It any over till its over. I still think Clinton pull it off.

mw

that was supposed to be "kind of a front runner" Disqus needs a preview.

superdestroyer

I would say that one of the missed points is how significant it is that New Hampshire came so close to Iowa. They used to be one month apart and gave time for a campaign to change. Now the entire Democratic Primary season is six days long.

I would also propose that the jumping on the Obama bandwagon shows how little most people in the U.S. really enjoy democracy. People do not like the uncertainty of elections. People who want guaranteed healthcare, guaranteed jobs, and tons of government entitlement are not the type who like the uncertain of elections. Look at how overwhelming Democratic the blue counties are in the U.S.

Republicrat

Let's not forget that these candidates have been out on the campaign trail for a year or more now. They've had debates galore, even if few were paying any attention. To say that the debate season for the Dems is only 6 days long is misleading. I agree, though, that there should be more time between the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. Add another two weeks, and candidates who lose momentum in Iowa will be given a fair chance to re-calibrate for next round.

Amanda

I have to respectfully disagree with the assumption that the Dems will all line up behind Obama. Hillary has the core of the party elite and the majority of the big donors. She has a lifetime of connections with the party leaders. And, she has a big carrot on February 5th. There are a lot of Clinton supporters in some of the states that vote on Super Tuesday, so she will stay in this race at least until then. Edwards will hang on through South Carolina and Nevada and he'll stick it out unless he drops back to 4th place. He has no political office to go back to, so I think he'll stay in this race until there really is no hope. I also think it's unwise to completely count out Bill Richardson - I doubt he'll win the nomination (which is a shame), but he could be a real spoiler for Clinton and Edwards in the western states.

MJDaniels53

Clinton and Edwards will likely stay in the race, but to no effect.

Mark

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