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1) Read today's Granite Status from the Union Leader about how the Republican party is punishing the New Hampshire GOP delegation for our First in the Nation Primary.
2) Now re-read it, making the following mental substitutions: Howard Dean for Mike Duncan, DNC for RNC, Barack Obama for John McCain, and Ray Buckley for Fergus Cullen.
3) Brainstorming time! Using your familiarity with the Union Leader, ask yourself what this article would have looked like with the new names.
Sen. Joe Biden "was going to be John Kerry's secretary of State," according to Newsweek. At least that's what his aides were led to believe before Kerry lost the election.
"Now Biden, who has been to foreign policy in the Senate what Ted Kennedy has been to domestic policy (almost anyway!), is emerging as a major consigliere to Barack Obama -- perhaps with his eye on State once again."
"Among the top items on Biden's agenda: making sure that Obama has better luck in November than Kerry did. That means, first, relentlessly attacking and counterattacking the Republicans on the campaign trail, especially on national-security issues. And, second, relentlessly defining John McCain as 'joined at the hip' to Bush, as Biden put it in a speech in Washington on Tuesday."
True to the script, Biden appeared on various talk shows over the weekend and declared, "This administration is the worst administration in American foreign policy in modern history, maybe ever."
When the primary started out, Biden was as far down on my list as, say, Gravel. But, probably, more than any other candidate, Biden became more and more appealing to me as the race went on. I really do hope he has a spot in an Obama Administration.
And not in a million years did I think I'd be a supporter of Chris Dodd.
So, I'm curious: which candidates surprised you during this long race? Which unexpectedly went up in your estimation, and which went down? Who would you like to see play a role in the White House?
John McCain (R-Ariz.) made a toast to the people of New Hampshire at Time's annual gala honoring "the most influential people in the world."
"I'm informed that it is the custom to toast someone who has influenced our lives. In that case, please raise your glass to the discernment and probity of the people of New Hampshire," McCain told the audience.
I agree. Take a long look at our discernment and probity, as represented by the votes we cast on Primary Day:
For every two votes cast for John McCain in this state last January, nearly five Granite Staters showed the discernment and probity to vote for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama instead.
This has been covered here, there, and everywhere, but I thought it might be useful to sum it up, along with a copy of the press release that Michael Brunelle sent on behalf of the NHDP (email, and below the fold):
There are 30 delegates going to the Democratic convention from the Granite State (and four alternates). Here's the breakdown:
Clinton's supers are Gaetan DiGangi, Anita Freedman, and Kathy Sullivan's the add-on, while Obama has Carol Shea-Porter, Paul Hodes, and Martha Fuller-Clark.
Feels so odd to be tying the bow on the NH Primary like this after such a long process. And how reflective of the nation we are in our delegate count! Obama and Clinton are tied. Yet the former has a virtually insurmountable lead in delegates won, states won, the popular vote, and fundraising. There's a strong argument to be made that the remaining unpledged supers as well as those Edwardians not feeling loyalty to John ought to be swayed by that reality. And the latter happens to be the candidate who won our state. Just as strong an argument can be made for that person to get the majority of our delegates because of the simple fact that she won.
I'm not interested in starting another flame war over an issue that has caused some real divisions, but as the most prominent state Democrat to mention it publicly, it's worth noting that Obama endorser Carol Shea-Porter was none too happy with the Clinton primary mailer that attacked Obama on his present votes (the one with the line "Barack Obama. Unwilling to take a stand on choice."):
"I wish she hadn't had done that," Shea-Porter said.
The Clinton mailer, sent days before the New Hampshire primary, has created a firestorm among Democratic activists. The mailer argued that Obama did not have a strong pro-choice record because Obama voted present on various abortion bills, while in the Illinois State Senate.
She added, "The reality is they both have a 100% percent pro-choice record."
"I'm sure most people wish that hadn't been done."
No more beating around the bush. Hillary is openly calling for flouting the DNC rules, rules set in part by the efforts of the New Hampshire Democratic Party and the other early states:
"I thank you for this vote of confidence. I will make sure not only that Florida's delegates are seated but also that Florida is in the winning column for the Democrats in 2008!"
And Josh Marshall added this earlier:
Already some chatter that the Florida and Michigan delegate issue may go to court.
I don't have a crystal ball. But I do know that if Obama has enough votes to win the nomination without FL and MI, and Hillary has enough votes with FL and MI, the press will have a field day watching the Democratic party splinter into tiny little pieces on the floor of the convention in Denver this summer.
Update:Democratic Party builder/reformer Simon Rosenberg, not exactly known for hyperbole:
Having worked on the New Hampshire primary and in the War Room in 1992 for the Clintons, I was present at the creation of the famous "rapid response" campaign style and fierce fighting spirit of the Clinton era. In the very first meeting of the famous War Room James Carville warned us "that if you don't like to eat sh-- everyday you shouldn't be in politics." So I understand as well as anyone that this is a tough game, not for the faint of heart.
But there is a line in politics where tough and determined becomes craven and narcissistic, where advocacy becomes spin, and where integrity and principle is lost. I am concerned that this Florida gambit by the Clinton campaign is once again putting two of my political heroes too close - or perhaps over - that line. So that even if they win this incredible battle with Barack Obama they will end up doing so in a way that will make it hard for them to bring the Party back together, and to lead the nation to a new and better day.
And right on cue, the Beard is itching for the legal hoopla:
Wolf Blitzer asks her whether she's willing to go to court to fight to get these Florida delegates seated at the convention.
"Oh, Wolf, this is pretty premature," Mrs. Clinton said, adding "We don't even know who the nominee is going to be yet."
Hillary Clinton has announced that she wants her delegates to "to support seating the delegations from Florida and Michigan."
This puts her New Hampshire delegates in an interesting bind, since our state party, with Ray Buckley at its helm, has worked overtime at the DNC meeting in December to keep all of our delegates. Their status was in question because of our moved up primary, which in turn was necessitated by Florida's and Michigan's attempt to bully themselves into a pre-Feb 5th primary. As Kathy Sullivan noted in the diary about this:
One of the key reasons I believe the waiver was granted was that Chairman Buckley worked with Iowa, Nevada and South Carolina on the no campaign pledge in Florida and Michigan. The other three early states, and the states that are scheduled for Feb. 5, were not pleased with the way Michigan and Florida tried to muscle their way into the front of the calendar. Raynmond recieved some criticism for this,which I think was unwarranted, as is evident by today's action.
So what will Hillary's New Hampshire delegates do? In my opinion, it's a terrible position to be put in by their candidate. Florida and Michigan are directly responsible for why we had to have such an absurdly early primary this year.
I'll only add that I stayed away from writing about Bill Clinton's recent activities more out of depression than anything else, because like many I think it's hurting the party (and has potential long-term ramifications about political families and the executive branch). But this latest move by Hillary to me is much more damaging to Democrats than anything Bill has said recently, because it undermines the party itself for the sake of personal political advantage. That's Joe Lieberman not accepting his party primary defeat territory. And before I go on for two more pages I'll instead direct you to Josh Marshall, with whom I agree completely.
Four years ago, I signed up to volunteer for Dean on primary day; by nature not an extrovert, it was a huge step for me, and a testament to how the Vermont Gov could inspire folks to go beyond their comfort zone for the greater good. Being completely new to political activism, I was both nervous and excited to be standing outside a polling station in the limb-numbing cold weather, checking off names of Dean voters who had just come out so that the campaign could target their GOTV operation. Sometime early that morning, I was harrassed by a Kerry supporter who told me that what I was doing was illegal, and he took a picture of me and stormed off, vowing to "report me." It was pretty unnerving for me, since I knew next to nothing about the rules other than what I was asked to do, and it wasn't until someone local from the Dean campaign contacted their counsel and told me I had done nothing wrong that I was able to breathe easy again.
Which is a long way of saying that I got depressed reading this:
But the Clinton intervention at Ward 9 in Nashua nonetheless persuaded the moderator to ban the Obama observers. And the disputes, which dragged on for hours and grew quite heated, generally scrambled the Obama efforts to keep track of who was and wasn't voting, said Obama supporter Andrew Edwards, a rookie state representative assigned to observe the polls in Nashua, where Clinton ran up a big margin in her favor. Edwards was confronted by Lasky and by another veteran Democrat, state representative and Nashua Democratic chairwoman Jane Clemons, who he said issued a veiled threat during the dispute that he would face a stiff primary challenge in Nashua if he ran for reelection.
"The effect of it was that it basically disrupted our get out the vote operation," said Edwards. "My effectiveness that day [in checking off names] was less than 50 percent as a result of the people who kept coming in" to protest the observers.
Clemons, whose son Nick Clemons managed Clinton's campaign in the state, said she objected to the Obama observers because she said she had been told by the Nashua City Clerk the day before that such observers would not be allowed and that letting the Obama use them conferred an "unfair advantage." In an interview Friday, the city clerk, Paul Bergeron, said this was not the case, that the discussion before the election had regarded volunteers challenging voters, not those checking names off lists.
I really wanted Rudy! to come in fifth too, but this is just beyond the pale. A Republican presidential candidate scored 31 votes in the town of Sutton, out of 920 total. By accident it was recorded as zero, and on the following morning the mistake was fixed. Very unfortunately for Town Clerk Jennifer Call, the candidate was Ron Paul:
The assault picked up after lunch. Paul supporters phoning Call claimed to be from the media. Others just yelled, saying she had committed treason, fraud. One person said she should be shot. She received as many as 40 calls that day.
"One person said he was on a nationally syndicated radio station," Call said, "and he has given out my phone number and they need to call the town of Sutton to find out why there's voter fraud."
The voices came from everywhere. California. Ohio. Florida. Michigan. Very few were from New Hampshire.
A man from Texas e-mailed that he was "contacting, by certified mail, the Attorney General of New Hampshire . . . and requesting a complete investigation and prosecution of any and all parties involved."
<...snip...>
She went home and locked her doors. She called her mother in North Carolina. She cried. The calls kept coming. She unhooked her answering machine and requested an unlisted number.
The good people of our state who get paid little, or nothing, to work our polling stations deserve better than this.
Because it is based on multiple rounds of voice votes collected by political operatives and campaign volunteers.
Because a little back-room dealing comes with the territory. And it's all legal.
Because you have a better chance influencing the vote by using caucus hall connections to deny support to third tier candidates -- why mess with the votes when you can write the rules?
As certain people cry out for a New Hampshire Primary recount (which I support, as a rather routine audit) is it worth asking why, if we actually take this stuff seriously, we continue to tolerate state parties choosing to run caucuses, in all their Tammany Hall glory?
You'd think after two full years (2003 & 2007) of campaigning in this state, that Rep. Kucinich would know that there's, very roughly speaking, two brands of Democrat in this state. The Connecticut River Valley Dean-Obama Democrat, and the north of Boston Kerry-Clinton Democrat, whose voter-rich cities use optical scanners.
But this says it far more persuasively than I can.
David Brooks' number one "Top Surprise" about the New Hampshire Primary:
1. Republicans voted in nearly the same numbers as Democrats.
Yes, in David Brooks' world, when 50,000 more people vote for Democrats than for Republicans in a state with a tiny population that has been GOP-dominated for generations; when 10,000 less Republicans vote in 2008 than in the last contested Republican primary; and when the second place finisher for the Democrats gets 16,000 votes more than the first-place Republican finisher... he calls it a tie.
I know I shouldn't complain about all the nice attention we get up heaah every four years, but the sheer volume of absurdities issued by the floating island of DC elite pundits this time around is breathtaking.
We can't wrap up our little presidential primary without pointing out one very important fact. The massive turnout for Democrats in the primary spells serious trouble for our good friend Sprintin' John E. Sununu. The DSCC Blog From the Roots already has the skinny:
The turnout results were dramatic - 50,000 more Granite Staters voted in the Democratic primary than the Republican primary, with nearly 280,000 voting in the Democratic race and only 229,000 turning out for Republicans. This was the first time since the establishment of the modern New Hampshire primary system that more people voted in the Democratic primary than the Republican primary when both were contested. Republicans actually turned out 10,000 fewer voters for their primary than in 2000, the last time there was a contested Republican presidential primary in their state. On the Democratic side, there were 125,000 more voters than in the 2000 primary, and 61,000 more voters than the 2004 primary, which was then a Democratic record, largely due to the fact that there was no Republican contest that year.
New Hampshire independents also showed that they are trending Democratic. According to exit polls, in the Democratic primary, 42% of voters were independents, up 1% from 2000, while in the Republican primary, only 34% of voters were registered independents - a 7% drop from 2000.
John Sununu now faces an electorate that produced 50,000 more votes last night for Democratic candidates than he won in his election in 2002, a stunning deficit that shows the extent of the challenge he faces in November.
There's more to it, but in sum: Democrats came out in droves to turn the page on the Bush/Cheney years, and they are not going to look kindly on Sununu, who has stood with W. through thick and thin, through Schiavo and Surge.
The comic stylings of New Hampshire GOP Chair Fergus!* Cullen on Hillary Clinton:
This morning at a briefing for foreign reporters covering the New Hampshire primary, state GOP chairman Fergus Cullen made this analogy about Clinton.
"She is like a roto-tiller - a machine of cold steel with claws that grind up the earth," Cullen said, as jaws dropped among many reporters.
"Actually, the roto-tiller may be warmer than Clinton."
Ray Buckley was more than happy to finish the analogy:
"The roto-tiller is used to mix in the fertilizer, otherwise known as cow manure," Buckley said. "I see a lot of cow manure in the Republican party. They are all standing out in the field up to their knees in the cow manure."
*To understand why Nanny Cullen gets the Rudy!esque exclamation point, click on the link. What a preposterous name tag.
The floating world of DC elite pundits has egg all over their face today because they and the polls (and me too) got it so wrong. In blogworld, I quickly and publicly noted my error and moved on to voting data to figure things out.
But in Tweety-land, apparently the only way to save face on this is to call us racists. The charge is so absurd I'm not even going to dignify it with a response other than to say that the monstrosity of the slur is equaled only by the illogic of it, if one actually cared to counter-punch.
I actually started preparing a long, drawn out survey of what went on, but it looks like DHinMI has already done so, and better than I could have. Please read it. But to sum up a little of what he said and add a few crude additions of my own:
* Connecticut Valley Dems are in the main for Obama, while Boston-area southern NH Dems are in the main for Clinton. We saw the same breakdown in 2004 as well between Dean and Kerry. But guess what? There's a whole lot more votes in Manchester and Nashua than in Hanover and Keene, and in small towns, college or not, all over the state that went Obama. And in a year where indies broke for Obama, and registered Dems for Clinton, advantage Clinton.
* Edwards' message of economic populism did not resonate with lower-income/working class town towns, and those voters broke for Clinton. I find this kind of troubling for Team Edwards, actually. But in a way it makes sense, given that people who are working more have to rely on tradmed more for candidate info, and Edwards did not get nearly as much oxygen as the other two.
* Here's a wild thought: maybe Clinton won because she had a fantastic set of qualified people running her show with tremendous experience in state politics, an unbelievable field operation, and worked her tail off in the final weeks here. And then there's that business of her being a very credible, experienced, qualified candidate for POTUS. Maybe she won, because, um, she won.
* Women held strongly for Clinton. A very interesting fact moving forward.
* A rising tide lifts all boats: massive voter turnout helped all candidates, not just ones who capture the youth vote, and the pre-Iowa neck and neck status of Obama and Clinton held tight. In the end, this was Clinton's firewall, and a firewall doesn't need to look pretty, it just needs to stop the spread of the flames. And with months and months beforehand of large margin frontrunner status here, she held on. While the number of delegates is the same, and the margin of victory is small enough to call it a tie, the psychological, media, and momentum victory is huge. Well done, Senator.
But none of this matters, because the bobbleheads are talking about tears and how we're a bunch of not only racists but liars, publicly supporting Obama but in the privacy of our viting booth showing our Yankee bigotry.
Update: The one big mystery for me still, though, is why all the post-Iowa polls were so wrong, even the reputable ones. For more on that, check our Pollster's analysis.
Just as in Iowa, these are the numbers that should be on everyone's lips today along with Senator Clinton's victory. The GOP got demolished yesterday in a state that was Republican for generations.
Total votes with 96% of precincts reporting:
Clinton, Hillary Dem 110,550
Obama, Barack Dem 102,883
McCain, John GOP 86,802
Romney, Mitt GOP 73,806
The margin is a little more sober than in Iowa, but considering that our primary resembled a general election turnout, and their caucus is a beast of a wholly different nature, this is extremely encouraging news for the Democratic party's chances in November.
From the Monitor Blog. This makes a lot of sense (boldface mine):
Barack Obama easily eclipsed John Kerry's vote total from the 2004 Democratic primary in New Hampshire, an election that Kerry won rather handily over Howard Dean. But it wasn't enough for Obama. Turnout was indeed high, and Hillary Clinton made the most of it.
This is a different story from what happened in Iowa five days ago. Turnout broke records there, and the influx of caucus-goers favored Obama. But high turnout in the caucuses is still low turnout, compared with a primary in New Hampshire. Tonight's election saw, in effect, a general election turnout, and it appears the party regulars in the state's most heavily populated areas more than made up for whatever new voters Obama brought out.
The story of the UNH polls through November and December was that Clinton led Obama among women and registered Democrats, subgroups that approach 60 percent of the Democratic primary electorate, often by double-digit margins. It was only when those margins started to get smaller that Obama got close and, briefly, pulled ahead. This poll, the one released just before Iowa, looks the best a week later (on the Democratic side). In it, Clinton's leads among women and registered Democrats was 11 points. Today's exit polling shows margins of 12 and 11. Clinton won where the votes are: Manchester, where she was up 2,500 votes with two of 12 wards still to report; Nashua, where she was up 1,800 with two of nine wards outstanding; Salem, where she nearly doubled Obama and won by more than 1,300 votes. And on it went. Obama did indeed win Hanover (Dartmouth) by 1,500 votes and Durham (UNH) by 500, much bigger margins than Dean had managed against Kerry in the college towns. But on this night, it just wasn't enough.
- Ari Richter
UPDATE: The total vote tally just passed 500,000. With almost 95 percent of the precincts reporting, 276,000 Democratic and 229,000 Republican ballots have been tallied by the AP.
Clinton ended up carrying Manchester by more than 3,000 votes and Nashua by more than 2,000.
Adding: in the end, the results, as I mused last night and as Richter writes here, are very similar to the reliable state polls pre-Iowa. So much for momentum and the rubber stamp theory.
Well done, Senator Clinton! Talk about a reversal of fortunes.
I was right about turn-out, but utterly wrong about the winner and the margin. So much for strategery. And Mark Penn lives for another day.
Adding: that as of 64-67% of precincts reporting, both Clinton and Obama are trouncing McCain and every other GoOPer in total votes cast.
Update: Pindell is good on election nights:
While the Associated Press is the only media organization to call it, the fact is that Barack Obama would have to have huge wins in the remaining college towns to come even close.
Some preliminary musing on why everyone, me included, got it wrong (well, at least kos can't call us a rubber stamp anymore).
* Polls post-Iowa were meaningless because they were too close to the caucus spin.
* Polls pre-Iowa were on the money, the ones showing her gaining back some after the awful Billy Shaheen week and holding steady.
* Polling primaries is more accurate than polling caucuses.
*Turnout in general is very high, as is numbers of undeclareds going for Dems. Bu the indy-Dems are not the exclusive property of Obama, it seems.
63% of Precincts Reporting. Voter-rich Manch and Nashua for Clinton, as well as working-class towns, according to Dante Scala on NHPR. Pindell deftly notes that college towns Hanover, Plymouth, and Durham not yet in.
Clinton, Hillary Dem 64,743 39%
Obama, Barack Dem 60,322 36%
Edwards, John Dem 27,578 17%
Richardson, Bill Dem 7,889 5%
Kucinich, Dennis Dem 2,415 1%
***************************
McCain, John GOP 49,925 37%
Romney, Mitt GOP 42,288 31%
Huckabee, Mike GOP 15,382 11%
Giuliani, Rudy GOP 11,709 9%
Paul, Ron GOP 10,654 8%
Total Write-ins GOP 2,436 2%
Thompson, Fred GOP 1,613 1%
Hunter, Duncan GOP 697 1%
Me: Ha! Write-ins still are beating Frederick!
This is it folks. Results stream here, unless I can find a better one. The CNN one here. And an AP one from the Monitor here. (getting jealous of Iowa's excellent Dem party results site)
Update: Town by town results available here from MSNBC.
Let's hear your voting stories in the comments... in my tiny little town, there was a line of voters in mid-morning, a chunk of which looked new to the process.
I'll say it: Barack Obama is going to win New Hampshire tomorrow by a significant margin, and he will do so in the context of one of the highest voter turnouts our state has seen in years.
But I'll add another: the Democratic party will be the other big winner tonight. We're staring at a new generation of (probable) lifelong Democrats.
Update: They're calling it for McCain. How funny is it that Willard lost after spending gobs and gobs and gobs of money here? And the great GOP car crash continues...
What was that about record turnout again? This is unbelievable, from Pindell:
The New Hampshire Secretary of State's office is fielding requests for Democratic ballots in Portsmouth, Keene, Hudson and Pelham.
This is not good news for Hillary Clinton.
Note: running out of Democratic ballots does not mean per se that more registered Democrats are voting - it means also that undeclareds are asking for Democratic ballots. I suspect that's what's behind Pindell's last line.
Poor elwood must have blisters on his fingers...
Update: Funny that. The early exit poll numbers match what polls have been saying for months. Undeclareds going 2 to 1 for Democrats:
Preliminary exit polls showed independents were more attracted to the Democratic contest; about 60 percent chose the Democratic primary over the Republican primary, according to partial samples in surveys for The Associated Press and the television networks.
Update: gallichon and I both saw on the TV ticker that Londonderry had 70% turnout. What now?!?
