Thoughts on the Upcoming New Hampshire Primary
Posted: Friday, January 06, 2012
by Terry Mitchell
http://commenterry.blogs.com
The New Hampshire Primary will be coming up on Tuesday, January 10th. This will be a very important contest in determining the 2012 Republican presidential nominee. Here are some things to consider as we approach the time when voters in the Granite State go to the polls to cast their ballots.
This year, there is a full week between the Iowa Caucuses and the New Hampshire Primary. In 2008, there were only five days between them, as the Iowa Caucuses were held on Thursday, and the New Hampshire Primary the following Tuesday.
While newspaper endorsements usually don’t mean a whole lot, the New Hampshire Union Leader’s endorsement of Newt Gingrich is likely to be worth about five percentage points or more to him, before it’s all said and done. That newspaper is greatly respected among conservative-minded people in New Hampshire. Contrast that to the more liberal Boston’s Globe’s endorsement of Jon Huntsman, which is likely not to mean much, if anything.
By the way, Gingrich did not call Romney a liar in the closing days of the Iowa campaign. At least, that was not his word. After disputing some of Romney’s claims, he was asked if he was calling Romney a liar, and he just said ‘Yes’. I know I'll be accused of parsing technicalities here, but the media made it sound like Gingrich was screaming "Romney is a liar" at the top of his lungs.
If Mitt Romney runs the table through Florida, the battle for the nomination will effectively be over at the end of this month. The only way he can be stopped is if he is defeated in South Carolina. In other words, if he wins South Carolina, he’s no doubt going to win Florida as well. Every GOP primary candidate since 1980 who has won South Carolina has also won Florida.
But in order to stop Romney in South Carolina, they must first slow him down in New Hampshire. While they don’t have to overtake or defeat him New Hampshire, they can’t afford to allow him to roll out of there with a full head of steam. Otherwise, defeating him in South Carolina would be practically impossible. That means they must – and I mean must – hold him to less than 40 percent in New Hampshire.
And it would make things a lot easier of for them if they could keep him under 35 percent. Keep in mind that John McCain won this primary in 2008 with 37 percent of the vote, with Romney coming in second at 32 percent. So, keeping him under 35 percent would likely mean that someone else, such as Gingrich, Rick Santorum, or Ron Paul, would be able to make the final margin close enough to loosen Romney’s death grip on the frontrunner status and create a situation in which it would be probable that he would lose in South Carolina.
Keeping him under 30 percent would all but guarantee that he would lose in New Hampshire and in South Carolina. However, this scenario seems highly unlikely at this point.
Finally, here’s one historical fact to consider. The only person ever to fail to win his party’s presidential nomination after winning both the Iowa Caucuses and the New Hampshire Primary in the same year was Democrat Ed Muskie in 1972. This has never happened to any Republican, mainly because no non-incumbent GOP presidential candidate has ever won them both in the same year. Yes, Romney would be the first.
Anyway, the reason Muskie lost out in 1972 in spite of winning Iowa and New Hampshire was because his margin of victory in both was very narrow when he was expected to win them in landslides. This opened the door for New Hampshire runner-up George McGovern to grab some momentum and defeat Muskie (then a senator from Maine) in most of the southern, Midwestern, and western state primaries that followed.
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