New Hampshire Primaries: The Recap
(Captain's Quarters) - New Hampshire voters have cast their ballots, and the results seem pretty clear. John McCain completed a months-long comeback, while Hillary Clinton suddenly righted a ship that looked in serious danger of foundering. She eked out a narrow win when polls suggested a big loss, and McCain took a race that looked like a toss-up and almost turned it into a laugher.
posted by BP News Bureau | 9:58 AM
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From National Review Online:
The emerging view of the Republican race seems to be that a McCain win in Michigan would essentially kill off Romney, leaving McCain as the likely nominee. Giuliani could stop McCain in theory, but given his recent disappearance from the scene, Giuliani would find this tough to do. This analysis strikes me as unconvincing. It seems at least as likely that we’re on the road to a drawn-out battle, quite possibly unresolved till convention time.
This will probably not be a momentum-based campaign. If all the Republican candidates held roughly similar views (as with this year’s Dems), then a Romney loss in Michigan might be decisive. But in the Republican race, Romney holds a place (fairly mainstream conservative across the board) matched by no other candidate. Given the resistance of some portion of the conservative base to every other candidate, Romney would be foolish to drop out, even after a loss in Michigan. In fact, Romney stands to capitalize on what may well be the next big development in the race, the (relative) rise of Giuliani, at McCain’s expense.
If McCain wins, or simply does very well in Michigan, he will begin to look (incorrectly, in my view) like the inevitable nominee. That will launch an intense campaign of scrutiny by the Republican base to see if they can truly wrap their minds around the idea of a McCain presidency. The results will be inconclusive.
McCain is certainly more conservative than Giuliani on abortion. That’s his strongest weapon for potentially uniting the party. But in addition to an extremely serious immigration problem (which I think will become more salient, not less, as McCain’s lead increases), McCain has differences with the party on any number of domestic issues.
The real danger is that a President McCain will tear the party apart with damaging triangulation on a wide range of domestic issues. After the immigration fiasco in Washington, the air went out of Republican tires. Imagine that kind of discouragement all the time, over a whole series of domestic issues. The potential of a triangulating McCain administration to tear the party apart will keep Romney alive, and prompt others to take a second look at Giuliani.
Of course Giuliani has a problem on the social issues, but Giuliani would likely run a far more conventionally conservative presidency across the board than McCain. McCain delights liberals and loves to work with them. Giuliani infuriates liberals and if anything loves sticking it to them. That means that momentum aside, Giuliani will likely cut seriously into McCain’s lead on Super-Tuesday.
At that point, if he’s been smart enough to stay in the race, Romney will be in a position to benefit from the raging battle between McCain and Giuliani. That will allow all three candidates to make it to the convention. Huckabee is a bit of a wild card here. He may turn out to be a one hit wonder. But even if Huckabee soldiers on, it won’t change the basic picture. Huckabee’s evangelical support may be enough to keep him alive, but Huck’s unconventional views won’t allow him to gain clear front-runner status.
With so many Republican candidates distancing themselves from some key part of the base, no candidate will find it easy to consolidate the support of seemingly defeated rivals. With a field holding so many candidates who speak for competing wings of the party, and excluding others, the logic is for candidates to stay in the race as the last best hope of their base, and to prevent the "horror scenarios" represented by the alternatives. Momentum is out and substance is in.
From National Review Online:
The first commercials for the Michigan primary started airing in force last night during the New Hampshire results shows. As expected, Mitt is apparently going to run hard on his business experience, as his commercials focus on economic issues (and seem to insinuate that we may be invaded by the Chinese at any moment). It's a smart move since Michigan is struggling with massive job losses to overseas and out-of-state factories and has a very involved Union vote. Most candidates who have stumped here in the last few months have tailored their message to address Michigan workers' fears of globalization, trade deficits, and fears about the decline of the American industrial machine. Duncan Hunter and Mitt Romney were very careful, in their last few visits and in the Michigan debate, to highlight their plans for Michigan's economic revival even to the point of incorporating some surprisingly un-Republican language on economic protectionism and trade.
Rudy and McCain, on the other hand, are showing commercials which focus heavily on security; Rudy's showing the spot with shots of Benazir Bhutto, kids dressed in suicide bomber garb, and his campaign mantra "Tested. Ready. Now." and McCain is touting his experience handling foreign affairs. McCain is also stressing his Washington experience, which may or may not play well in Michigan, where residents have expressed dissatisfaction (to put it mildly) at Washington's lack of attention to their economic situation. Huckabee has yet to campaign — or for that matter, publicly acknowledge that Michigan has a primary — but Club for Growth will start airing anti-Huckabee ads here today, and if there is one thing Michiganians are wary of, its someone who solves economic problems with taxes.
Mitt is a hometown favorite. Love for his father runs deep, and has had remarkable longevity. He could certainly still win here. He's on the right message at the right time, anyway.
From National Review Online:
The Michigan primaries next week matter a whole lot, not only because they’ll likely offer a second victory to someone and determine the viability of the Romney campaign, but also because Michigan is a state where the economy is a major issue. And frankly it looks more and more likely to be so nationally by November.
There are some growing indications that 2008 will not be a great year economically, and by the nature of the congressional calendar, the efforts now increasingly talked about to pass a stimulus package would need to get started pretty quickly — before the spring. That means concerns about the economy will be front-and-center in Washington quite soon, to a degree they haven’t been since early in Bush’s first term, and so will quickly come front-and-center on the campaign trail too.
The question is, what do the various candidates have to say to a nation concerned about the economy: on jobs, trade, taxes, and health care costs? These have not been central issues in the Republican race so far (even taxes have not been), but they will need to be in Michigan, and that should give us some idea of what candidates will be able to speak plausibly about these issues in the fall.
At first blush, the Democrats might seem far better able to speak to such concerns in the general election. But I’m not so sure. Republicans could actually have a pretty good message for lower middle class families (a pro-family, pro-market message of aspiration, rather than a simply pro-government message of desparation), if only they deigned to speak to them. Huckabee has tried, but with a tax plan that would actually hurt these very families and with very little substance beyond it. Others haven't even tried. They’ll need to try in Michigan. We should pay attention.
From the Real Clear Politics Blog:
Three questions after a stunning evening.
Q: Did Hillary Clinton cry her way to victory last night?
A: That certainly seems to be where the conventional wisdom is headed, but as Jay pointed out last night, the data doesn't appear to support the idea that there was any "late break" to Clinton based on her "reverse Muskie moment."
Among the seventeen percent of voters who said they made their choice on the primary day, Clinton edged Obama by a slight margin, 39% to 36%. Obama edged Clinton among the 21% of those who decided in the last three days (37-34), and beat her soundly among the 10% who decided sometime last week (43-28) and the 17% who made their decision in the last month (44-34). But among the 34% who said they had locked in their choice prior to the final month, Clinton dominated Obama by a margin of 48 to 31.
This doesn't rule out the possibility that many people, especially older women, who considered themselves "decided" on Hillary Clinton for some time weren't spurred to the polls by events in the closing days of the race who might have otherwise stayed home. So maybe the CW is at least partially right.
Q: Is Romney done?
A: Not totally, but close. Pundits are calling last night's loss "devastating" and saying his campaign is "on life support" as he heads off to must-win Michigan. If Romney loses to McCain in his home state, he will almost certainly be left for dead as the race moves on to South Carolina, a place where recent polls show him running a distant third behind Huckabee and McCain.
The task in Michigan is made all that more difficult by the fact that Independents can vote in either primary, and there is no contest on the Democratic side since most major candidates opted off the ballot at the DNC's urging last October. Though McCain has no organization in the Michigan, he's a popular, well known figure who won the state in 2000 and now returns with high visibility coming off of his dramatic victory here last night.
Q: Can Obama survive?
A: Sure he can. But we're going to see just what kind of mettle Obama and his staff have now that they've been knocked off stride in a contest they clearly felt - as did everyone else in the known universe, including Clinton - that they were going to walk away with last night.
Democrats are off to compete in Nevada, but South Carolina now becomes Obama's primary firewall. Recent polls show he received a significant post-Iowa bounce in the Palmetto State, but there's no telling whether or how long those numbers will hold up in the wake of last night and over the next two weeks. And given what we saw last night with all the polls badly missing the mark on the Democratic side in the nation's first primary vote, will the next contested primary produce the same kind of volatility? Or was New Hampshire merely an aberration?
That's the remarkable thing about the race this year: the further it goes along, the more questions it generates.
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