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In what could quite possibly be the nail biter of the season, Hillary Clinton pulled it out last night, winning the New Hampshire Democratic primary by a two to three point lead over Iowa front-runner Barack Obama. While most of the media was writing Hillary's political obituary, she was winning New Hampshire. With the Nevada caucuses next, and the black vote potentially split between the Clintons and Barack Obama, South Carolina may be back in play. In fact, Clinton's win last night showed one of Obama's key weaknesses: his reliance on independent and new voters. Female and older voters seemed to gravitate towards Clinton last night, with 45 percent of female Democratic voters chose Clinton. Voters over the age of 40 also picked Clinton, with nearly 70 percent going for Hillary over Obama.
The opposite happened on the Republican side of the race, where nearly 40 percent of independents who voted in the GOP primary cast a vote for McCain, who had 37 percent of the overall vote. Mitt Romney came in second with 32 percent, and Mike Huckabee, the winner of last week's Iowa GOP caucuses followed with 11 percent. Huckabee gave what was most likely the best concession speech of the night, conceding third place while preparing to head to Michigan, Nevada, South Carolina and Florida. "Tonight we're going to come out of here with continued momentum," Huckabee told supporters. "In Michigan, in South Carolina, in Florida ... what you helped us continue will be carried right on through, and it won't be long we're going to be able to secure the nomination and on to the White House and on to leading America," he said. Huckabee is polling well in both Michigan (which won't have a real Democratic primary this year) and South Carolina, which have much larger Evangelical constituencies than New Hampshire. Huckabee will have to contend with McCain, however, who is counting on both states to carry his campaign.
While the big story coming out of the race last night is Hillary's "comeback", the lesser reported story is the beginning of the end of the hard-right's grip on the GOP. Even though McCain appears to have made a comeback last night, and might even do well in Michigan or Nevada, the Republican primary is far from over. With Mitt Romney the closest the neoconservatives have to a candidate, Mike Huckabee a genuine Christian Conservative, and moderate Republicans too cowed to step up, the coming fight in the Republican party will make the Democratic primary seem like a cake walk.
Heading into Nevada and South Carolina, watch for the GOP race to get nastier, with Romney fighting to stay in the race. In the Democratic race, Bill Richardson will burn out gracefully, in the hopes that he gets the nod for Veep, and John Edwards will keep fighting through Super-Duper Tuesday. New Hampshire was about the rebirth of the underdog. The coming primaries are about stamina and grace, and who will walk away from February 5 with the nomination. At this point, it's anyone's game to win.
Image via AP Photo/Alex Brandon
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"With the Nevada caucuses next, and the black vote potentially split between the Clintons..."
She hasn't picked her running mate yet and it's probably not going to be Bill. Is that a typo or would you care to elaborate?
Number 6: Hillary hasn't picked her running mate yet, since she hasn't gotten the nomination. Regardless, there is a sense in the black community that the Clintons - yes, both of them - have been very good to African-Americans.
I don't know, I still think the black vote turns out in huge numbers for Obama, but there is probably some internal struggle with how to cast that vote come January 26.
So first of all, how can anyone say with a straight face that Hillary Clinton is and has been the "underdog" when she's been the clear front runner for all but 5 of the past 365 days?! That's just false.
Second, the quote from Huckabee's speech could have come from any campaign. Huckabee was a non-entity last night -- totally irrelevant -- he only got 11%.
A little more of the facts (perhaps a breakdown of the actual numbers) and less sloppy analysis please!
"With Mitt Romney the closest the neoconservatives have to a candidate..."
This is plainly incorrect. McCain is the neoconservatives' candidate; the man cites Robert Kagan as a primary influence on his foreign policy ideas. I don't see anything Straussian in Romney's platform apart from pandering to what he must believe is the anti-internationalist wing. As far as I know, Kristol remains resolutely neutral, though he's more sanguine about a Huckabee victory than might be expected.
Huckabee's campaign in NH wasn't totally irrelevant; he kept Giuliani from placing third. And he was the neo-cons' candidate.
Giuliani's stable of foreign policy advisors is largely stocked from the AEI. While they may be aligned politically with, say, PNAC, I'd hardly call them the vanguard of neoconservatism.
Care to explain your statement, Chuck?
Ok - I thought that was a dig at the perception of her running on Bill's record.
Tourism and Chuck; the neocon candidate is neither Huck nor McCain.
Huck has a lot of questions between traditional conservative ideals and his past, and McCain loves to play nice for the media- and how can conservatives forget his playing with Ted Kennedy only months ago.
Thats part of the problem in the GOP- hence no clear front runner. Romney may be the most traditional, but hesitation to actually like him costs him votes.
How can you say McCain is the choice of conservatives if he won NH thanks to independants?!
I agree with the other commenters here, Kevin. Your analysis isn't just mundane, it seems as if have gotten it totally wrong in some places.
Huckeyes, I didn't say 'conservatives' I said the choice of 'neoconservatives' which is a specific ideology. You can be in a same sex marriage arranging your sister's abortion while smuggling Mexicans across the border and be a neocon. The fact that this isn't often the case (again, cf Bill Kristol) isn't relevent.
Doesnt make McCain anymore the choice of a neocon though.
I guess you have to state your definition of a neocon then...
Neoconservatives: those conservatives whose world views are primarily informed by Leo Strauss (and, through him, Hobbes and Burke). Those who believe in using military force to affect national policy and that jus ad bellum à la the Kellogg-Briand Pact is a roadblock to advancing American interests. More broadly, those conservatives who think that the unilateral exercise of power on the international stage is the privilege and right of the United States.
I would say that having Robert Kagan on your team along with William Kristol (contra my previous comment), Henry Kissinger, and Gary Schmitt makes you a neoconservative.
I would argue neoconservatives are far more anti liberal social policies than anything else.
Regardless, McCain still wouldn't be the man, his views are much softer than others on military intervention.
According to your analysis, the best neocon candidate would be Mr. Barack 'invade pakistan now' Obama himself; based on your conjecture of using military power.
Passing on the argument of whether those other men are neocons or not, and if having them on a campaign team makes the candidate 'them' or 'those guys'- I don't think he will get the nomination, simply because he appears to be soft in all categories; hence the appeal to independants and not the hardliners of the party.
Huckeyes, please link to the source verifying your claim that Obama is intent on invading Pakistan. Also, your views as to what constitutes a neconservative run counter to, well, what neoconservatives believe themselves to be. (At least those who claim to be neocons, some don't.)
But according to my definition, Obama would not be a neocon, although it's clear you're trying to bait me, not debate me. Nothing in his rhetoric resembles Strauss' philosophy nor does he seem disposed to Cheney's philosophically grounded notion of central authority. I don't think that he or anyone in the Democratic primaries is a born-and-bred internationalist or likely to significantly diminish the massive expansion of executive power that's taken place.
Even so, it's not a willingness to use military might that defines the neocon, but the belief that power of aggression is not constrained by consensus of international law. McCain aggressively asserted this in the run up to the Iraq war on just about every television program that would have him on.
However, I think that the Republicans are going to a brokered convention and that McCain's pissing off of the paleocons (yes) means that he won't get it. I think that man is, alas, Romney. But that's all crystal ball work.
Here is a link. Its the first article of tens of thousands with 'obama invade pakistan' thanks to google.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/01/AR2007080101233.html
For somebody who likes to talk and theorize so much- your not very well rounded if you didn't even know about this. It was all over the news after he said it, and it incited riots and several deaths in Pakistan.
But you were probably to busy exciting yourself over political verbage to notice.
Huckeyes, I never said I didn't know about it. I wanted to know from where you sourced your information. The article backs up your point nicely, but the exact quote was "I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges, but let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf will not act, we will." This isn't an invasion. I'm not even arguing whether it's right, wrong, or otherwise, merely countering your baseless argument that he's a neocon.
You're already into the insults. I was hoping that you were better than that.
I didn't say he was a neocon; I was making the point that according to your early definition of a neocon, that using military force as an answer to world diplomacy makes one a neocon , Barack would therefore be a neocon due to what he said about Pakistan. Again, not a baseless accusation I made, but a point that you might want to be careful about you definition of a neocon.
Also, he did say he would "unilaterally" go into Pakistan, so your chosen qoute isn't the best one you could have chosen.
I didn't say he was a neocon; I was making the point that according to your early definition of a neocon, that using military force as an answer to world diplomacy makes one a neocon , Barack would therefore be a neocon due to what he said about Pakistan. Again, not a baseless accusation I made, but a point that you might want to be careful about you definition of a neocon.
Also, he did say he would "unilaterally" go into Pakistan, so your chosen qoute isn't the best one you could have chosen.