A few observations on yesterday's New Hampshire primary:
1. Because I am a supporter of John Edwards, you might think that I would be disappointed in last night's third-place finish. Well, think again. Edwards campaigned very little in New Hampshire, and New Hampshire voters are among the nation's most likely to be turned off by a southern accent and boyish charm.
But Hillary's narrow victory pleased me, throwing our increasingly nasty-toned race into the kind of turmoil that leaves a third-place finish not looking so bad. It leaves Edwards a little bit out of the way of all the mudslinging going into a few races, in Michigan, South Carolina and Florida, where he might fare better and have some freshly-minted momentum going into Super Duper Tuesday on February 5.
It's really not a bad position to be in at this particular moment.
2. Hillary's close victory is being touted as some kind of "upset" because polls over the past few days (not even a whole week, actually) showed Obama to have taken a fairly substantial lead, with one poll even showing an Obama margin over Hillary of thirteen percentage points. But one week ago the positions had been reversed, and people's opinions really don't swing that rapidly.
Indeed, the narrowness of her win would have been considered an OBAMA "expectations victory" as recently as last Thursday, and I believe that it shows that neither of these candidates has a particularly strong hold on any widespread support.
3. I have, in some recent writings, described a phenomenon that occurs when an election is between a black candidate and a white one, in which the black candidate fares much better in public opinion polls than he or she does when the votes are actually counted. I peg this disparity at around 6% of the vote, and it is fairly consistent nationwide. It is, in my opinion, the result of a latent racism that manifests itself only in the privacy of one's self, behind the closed curtain of a voting booth. Because it has become a social taboo, bigots hide their bigotry when speaking in polite company or in any public setting (as when being interviewed by a pollster), but are not afraid to express it in private or among like-minded racists.
I believe that this effect reared its ugly head once more among the "flinty" voters of New Hampshire last night, and if Obama is our candidate it will hurt us badly next November.
4. On the Republican side, I cannot foresee Mitt Romney being able to win anywhere if he could not win New Hampshire. And he quite emphatically did not win New Hampshire.
I'd love to think that money can only take an unfit candidate so far, but then I remember George W. Bush.
5. Has Rudy Giuliani dropped completely off the table? He deserves to. Giuliani is the scariest as regards our civil liberties.
6. I do not think John McCain will be the Republican nominee, but I am often wrong about what Republicans will do, constantly overestimating their intelligence (by assuming, despite all evidence to the contrary, that it's a number above zero). New Hampshire Republicans have always liked him, although why they like him is one of life's mysteries.
But one thing for sure: The media sure like him. Both Meet the Press and Face the Nation had him as their sole guest on the Sunday before the New Hampshire primary. And they constantly characterize his chief appeal as being his "straight talk." Hunh?
Listen, folks. That is NOT "straight talk" coming out of his mouth. He is toeing the Bush administration line on Iraq, and if anyone still really believes that invading Iraq was a good idea and that, knowing then what we know now, that he would do just what Bush did but with more troops, as McCain stated on Face the Nation Sunday morning, then he is either too stupid even to be considered for president or else he is engaging in semantic subterfuge intended to pander to Bush's base, still a significant factor in Republican circles.
In the past, McCain has behaved a little bit (but JUST a little bit) more reasonably than most Republicans when the issue was immigration, taxes, or campaign financing, but his TALK, at this point, is far more doctrinaire Republican, and so if it is actually "straight" then he has flipped his positions on a number of essential points.
And he now sweet-talks the evangelicals who he CORRECTLY laid into so heavily in 2000. He ain't the man he used to be.
People also speak of his expertise in foreign policy. Forgive me, but I do not see spending a few years in a Vietnamese prison camp, and a few more as a Senate back-bencher from Arizona, as imparting a whole lot of international depth or diplomatic expertise. Since then he's been a senator who's shot off his mouth a lot and been wrong on nearly every issue.
You want foreign policy expertise? Elect a Democrat and get people, a number of them, actually, who have actually achieved peace between implacable foes.
And that ridiculous, affected sing-song breathiness in his voice drives me up an effin' wall!
But most of all, I think he's actually crazy, really heavily paranoid and disoriented in his thinking. The hatred of the Islamic world that he expressed in his victory speech last night really gave me the willies.
All that said, I think he's the one among the Republican hopefuls that we'll beat most easily next November. I really don't think this country is going to give a vote of confidence either to Bush's war in Iraq or to Bushonomics, and McCain is clearly the candidate of Bush White House continuity here.
7. What are the Paultards saying today about that big 8% showing for their man in the one state most likely to show him favor? I know Ron Paul is the darling of weirdos who people the Republican Internet, but the chance of him winning, or even finishing in the top tier of finishers in ANY primary, is precisely nil.
On to Michigan. If John Edwards can't get a good showing there, I'm gonna start worrying.
The only problem with the last point is nobody but Hillary is on the ballot there, and I doubt any candidates will campaign there as a result.
I wouldn't be too worried--yet.
As for McCain, he's a bit off the mark. I think there is a better than average chance he will get the nomination, and, despite his shortcomings, he will beat either Clinton or Obama (but not Edwards). Remember, he has the media on his side shilling for him horribly.
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