Hillary Clinton's surprising primary win in New Hampshire Tuesday night is simply proof of what I've written before here: that in Iowa it's the activists who take part in the caucuses, but in the Granite State, it's the first test for presidential candidates before real voters.
The huge turnout brought by unusually mild weather was of regular working folks, not those who live and breathe politics. Those people preferred Hillary Clinton and John McCain. That simple.
There will be much discussion of Hillary as "the Comeback Kid" and dissection of how she managed to pull out her victory after Sen. Barack Obama came in with so much momentum from Iowa. The talk will be wrong. Last minute changes of mind are unlikely in New Hampshire.
Clinton led in polling right up to the beginning of the year. Once Obama won Iowa, the so-called experts began warning of a tidal wave that was going to swamp her by double-digits. And there was some polling to support the theory. As it turned out, though, voters on the Democrat side of the ledger didn't change their minds after all.
Two theories as to why. First, the long campaign has seen all the candidates for both parties in New Hampshire for many months. People made up their minds and, being politically savvy by necessity as residents of the earliest primary state, they were less likely than others to be caught up in some tidal wave.
Second, the one instance where Democrat voters allowed themselves to be caught up in such hysteria, they got burned. Sen. John Kerry posted a surprise victory in Iowa and was suddenly anointed as "the one who could beat President Bush." Maybe with Kerry being in a neighboring state filled with Massachusetts transplants, New Hampshire voters were more likely to fall victim, and they did. Kerry went on to become the worst presidential candidate in my lifetime.
Burned once? It happens. Burned twice? No way. Exit polls pointed to the very solid trait of experience as to why they chose Clinton over Obama. Nothing goofy like she's a woman or he doesn't look presidential.
Not much to say about the Republican side, other than the margin of McCain's victory over Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was smaller than indicated by polling of the last week. As I've stated a few times, the McCain surge is a bit over-rated, and it proved out in a state he's spent so much time in that he could become liable for income taxes. Romney's been second twice now, but somewhere along the line he's going to need to win something.
Other winners:
-- Mike Huckabee. The former Arkansas governor came in third in New Hampshire, a state in which his polling numbers had been in the low single-digits until recently. Now 11 percent is nothing to write home about, but he could have done much worse. He can say with validity that he kept some momentum out of Iowa.
-- Rudy Giuliani. At first glance, the former New York mayor barely finished above Ron Paul. However, he wrote off New Hampshire long ago in favor of his big-state strategy and in recognition that McCain had practically taken up residence in a state partial to him. If the mediocre showing here is the first sign that the wind is out of the sails of the Arizona senator, it will be Giuliani who benefits.
Losers:
-- Pollsters and Pundits. No doubt they over-estimated the Obama tide. Lots of navel gazing to be done Wednesday.
-- Fred Thompson. As Giuliani actually got a decent amount of votes for someone who didn't bother to show up, the former Tennessee senator did not. His total with 92 percent of the ballots counted was 2,677, just 1 percent. He needs a top-three finish in South Carolina or he's done.
-- Vermin Supreme. A guy who actually has that name run on the GOP ballot on a platform of mandatory teeth brushing and collected 34 votes. Of course, if he'd wanted a ban on using cell phones in crowded places, he'd have won even more votes.
Aside from Hillary Clinton perhaps saving her candidacy, I don't think New Hampshire really told us very much. Both the Democrat and Republican races will still be hot heading into Super Tuesday.
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Interesting numbers in exit polling on MSNBC.com.
One of the things observers wanted to know was how the vote of independents was going to break, and how the candidates did within their own parties.
Of the people who voted in the Republican race, 34 percent identified themselves as independents and they favored McCain over Romney by 38 to 30 percent. That's not the overwhelming margin of independents McCain received against Bush in 2000. However, he also beat Romney against Republicans 37 to 33 percent.
For Democrats, 42 percent of voters surveyed declared themselves as independents, and 40 percent selected Obama compared to 34 percent for Clinton. Among Democrats only, Clinton won 43 percent to 32 percent.
Those numbers could have an impact later in the race. Eventually, whoever wins the party nominations, they'll have to attract independents if they're going to be the next president.
