Politics is a strange craft. For those in power, it can sometimes present itself as a deceptively calm sea, inviting the flotilla of front-runners and their supporters to sail blithely ahead, unaware of unseen storm clouds. But the once serene sea of pundit-projected winners is now roiling in a storm of defeat in New Hampshire: Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney are bracing themselves to lose the first-in-the-nation primary to Barack Obama and to John McCain.
The storm began in Iowa, and only time will tell whether it will abate for Clinton and Romney when, after tomorrow, they turn the prows of their campaign ships into the wind of the other primary states.
I have relatives in the Granite State from its north country to its southern border, and they tell me that they are being bombarded with telephone calls. My sister up in Laconia said that the Granite State is the only one in the nation where you can’t go outside at primary time without bumping into a candidate looking for your vote. They are swarming all over the state.
Tomorrow’s voting results will show that Barack Obama will have locked in the Democrats’ delegates and that John McCain will have garnered the Republican ones.
It’s almost redundant to say that this is a major glitch in the prior momentum of the Clinton juggernaut. It’s also a big disappointment for Romney who served as an outstanding Republican governor in adjacent Democratic Massachusetts. Both are significant upsets which will require crucial campaign changes, if Clinton and Romney are to recover.
Note: For N.H. politics, see the Manchester Union Leader at http://www.unionleader.com/ For Iowa politics, see the Des Moines Register at http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage
No comments:
Post a Comment