Thank You and No Thanks to the Voters of New Hampshire

New Hampshire takes pride in, and has vigorously defended, it's second spot on the primary/caucus calendar because New Hampshire voters want to think they make a difference in presidential politics. After all, the only time millions of Americans even think about New Hampshire is during presidential primaries and the two annual visits that NASCAR makes to Loudon each year.

This year's New Hampshire primary provided voters of both parties with something to talk about. Republicans owe New Hampshire a big "thank-you" for keeping the Dem race alive, and a big "no-thanks" for keeping John McCain alive. I'm not sure which party suffered the greater damage, but it appears the Dems may win that dubious award.

Columnists are now frantically rushing their Hillary Clinton "pre-mortems" into print so they will look particularly astute and wise when she finally pulls the plug on her candidacy - a move that could come as early as March 4th or 5th (see examples here and here). Nobody wants to be the last one to proclaim that "they knew this would happen". The only reason we're still talking about her campaign is New Hampshire.

When Obama surprised the pundits and finished first in Iowa (to Hillary's third) the momentum clearly moved his way. However, New Hampshire voters, clearly moved by Hillary's tears the day before the primary, turned out in big numbers for the former First Lady and turned a double-digit polling lead by Obama into a narrow loss for Mr. Audacity of Hope, and a big win for Mrs. Inevitable. That January night kept the Clinton campaign alive and might have even started an impressive victory march had Bill Clinton not destroyed her momentum by turning the campaign into a race war in South Carolina, damage from which she's still apologizing trying to recover. Black voters who were once the Clinton's best friends couldn't get away from her fast enough.

The Clinton campaign's strategy all along was for the race to end on Super Tuesday, and without her win in New Hampshire, it might have ended that night with her concession speech. Instead, we've been treated to many more weeks of wrangling and increasingly bitter campaigning, not to mention 11 Obama wins in a row since Super Tuesday. An Obama win in either Texas or Ohio on March 4th will likely be the end as even their superdelegate firewall will crumble (signs of that are already appearing).

For this continued acrimony and Dem party division, we thank you, voters of New Hampshire.

On the GOP side, New Hampshire didn't do us any favors. Mike Huckabee had the "Big Mo" coming out of Iowa but was never really going to be a factor in New Hampshire. The hope for many conservatives had been that former Gov. Mitt Romney from neighboring Massachusetts would get the nod and thus put the flagging McCain campaign out of our misery. New Hampshire, having an open primary like many of the early states, gave McCain the victory thanks to votes from non-Republicans - either independents or moderate Dems who didn't like what they saw on their side. For the first time in months McCain looked like a winner and that encouraged the independents and moderates in following races to take another look at the Arizona senator. Additional open primaries followed with conservatives splitting their votes among several candidates and leaving the wishy-washy middle all to McCain.

One conservative firewall after another collapsed. Fred Thompson bailed after South Carolina, Rudy Giuliani after Florida, and Mitt Romney after a disappointing Super Tuesday. Only the Huckster remained in the fight, and although he has had a few successes, his hopes of forestalling the McCain nomination and ending up in a brokered convention have all but dissipated. Even the NY Times lame attempt to tarnish Mr. Straight Talk with a late campaign hit piece won't reenergize the Huckabee campaign.

Thank you, New Hampshire.

New Hampshire still has one tiny role to play. The voters of Dixville Notch will go to the polls at midnight on election day to cast the first official ballots for president. The Granite State will then disappear back into the shadows...at least until NASCAR comes to town.

I'll talk about this subject and more on Monday's BlogTalkRadio program which you can hear by clicking on the icon. Feel free to call in and join the conversation. The show kicks off at 7pm PT Monday night.

I've expanded Monday's show to 45 minutes to give us plenty of time. The call-in number will be (347) 347-5547.