POLITICS: The New Hampshire Primary
Jan 7th, 2008 by azdean
If you read the DrudgeReport today, Matt Drudge makes it sound as if Hillary is ready to throw in the towel soon after she comes in an expected distant second place to Obama in the New Hampshire primary. Surprisingly, she has started to show a more emotional side to herself, that while endearing and finally allowing her to come across as human, also demonstrates at the core a real desperation on her part — for doing so projects weakness not commonly displayed by candidates running to be leader and defender of the free world.
From my perspective, the Democratic debate on Saturday crystallized the essential differences between the three front-running candidates. With their policy differences roughly similar, it basically gets down to answering who will be best at achieving real change. Hillary’s answer was that she not only has experience changing things, but she’s been doing it now for thirty-five years. Edwards’ answer was that he is the most personally and emotionally determined to change things. He fought the special interests for a long time and fights to defeat them — not just work a compromise with them. Obama basically indicates that destiny is on his side and that he will not so much fight to defeat, but rather he will unite people to win.
Because people are so tired of all the fighting and compromising, Obama’s message of uniting really speaks to a deep place in people and for me this is exactly why he has been rising so much in the polls. Obama’s rising tide is such an unexpected turn of events that it is becoming a news story in itself, and that feeds on the sense that destiny is at play here. So if the Obama Democratic nomination is fait accompli, then is the general election all but over too?
Perhaps not. William Kristol brings up an interesting scenario in his column, “President Mike Huckabee?”
If Huckabee gets the Republican nomination, then apparently there is a real possibility that New York mayor Michael Bloomberg will run as a third-party candidate (much like Ross Perot ran in 1992). If so, the question becomes who does Bloomberg steal more votes from: Huckabee or Obama. Kristol thinks Obama will suffer the most enabling Huckabee to win much like Clinton won back in 1992 — a surprising way for history to repeat itself and elect another man from “Hope”.
My prediction for the New Hamphire primary tomorrow is that Obama will win by a significant margin, all but sealing his bid for the Democratic nomination, while McCain will win the Republican side. The larger story for the Republicans will be that Romney’s numbers will remain basically stagnant, and thus his chances for a comeback will seem bleak, while Huckabee will show continued movement up keeping his momentum going and his name in the news. People know McCain is not likely to win in a number of primaries to follow New Hampshire, and since Romney seems to be going nowhere, Huckabee then will continue to have a real chance — even despite having so many conservatives and talk-radio shows attacking him.
What do you think will happen?
