Eric Shawn: Nearly neck and neck in New Hampshire
Susan Crabtree on how the Democratic primary is shaping up
Here’s the dirty little secret of the New Hampshire primary, as well as the Iowa caucuses. The establishments of both parties really don’t like either. If they had their druthers, they’d quickly replace them with a sequence of regional or large state primaries. The candidates with advantages would be the ones who were best known and had the easiest ability to raise the kind of money required.
In 2016, Bernie Sanders emerged as a serious contender for the Democratic nomination the minute he won Iowa. In 2012, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum emerged as a serious Republican hopeful when he won Iowa. This year, former Mayor Pete Buttigieg may break out of the pack if he does surprisingly well in New Hampshire, after a solid showing in Iowa.
While each of these three candidates clearly have significant political talent, with an appeal to large sections of their party – none is the kind of candidate the parties’ professional leadership – and down ballot candidates for Senate, House of Representatives, and the many statewide offices – really want at the top of their tickets.
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So why do these state contests continue? Why can’t the party – either party – figure out a way to replace them with a process that makes more “sense”?
They continue because hopeful candidates – outside the mainstream – as well as their donors know that they represent ways to make their candidacies known. They’ve seen how George H.W. Bush emerged from nowhere to wind up vice president and then president based on a strong showing in Iowa in 1980. They’ve seen John McCain essentially be given up by donors, fire much of his staff, and emerge as the nominee in 2008 because of his win in New Hampshire.
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They’ve seen Rudy Giuliani, a Republican establishment favorite in 2008, ignore New Hampshire to focus on Super Tueday and Florida – and wind up a punch line on “Saturday Night Live.” And on the Democratic side, they’ve seen how a little known Democratic senator bet everything on Iowa, win and give a great speech to go on to become President Barack Obama.
In other words, the small state early primaries and caucuses persist because they work. It’s a free country, where the belief in states’ rights permeates more than just health care and gun control. The national parties can’t dictate what the state parties will organize, so instead, they seek to shape the calendar around the dictates of some of the small states.
These small state events are the only chance we have to see how candidates compete at the retail level – one-to-one with voters – and it’s the only real chance the candidates have to learn about the massive pitfalls of a national campaign.
While I do think that these small state events – and I’d include South Carolina on the list as well – make a great deal of sense, particularly in a time of the nationalization of all issues, the growth of social media, and the increasing ability of candidates to fund multimillion-dollar war chests. They’re the only chance we have to see how candidates compete at the retail level – one-to-one with voters – and it’s the only real chance the candidates have to learn about the massive pitfalls of a national campaign, with a highly capable national press corps ready to pounce on the slightest gaffe.
But after this year, the pressure on the parties – and even the small states – is going to be massive.
First came the vote count debacle in Iowa. The state party was under pressure from at least one of the campaigns to report more results than they’d ever done in the past – the first alignment, the second alignment and the state delegate equivalents – and they designed a bizarre formula for delegates that some argue was internally inconsistent. In the end, they took four days to generate reports from 1,700 precincts (the kind of information most high school students can ingest into their spreadsheet) – and weren’t able to respond to the many reports that the data may have been wrong.
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Then came the emergence of candidates who may or may not be capable of uniting the Democratic party around an individual who can appeal to a sufficiently large tent to win a general election (and help with the many state and local candidacies).
And there’s a third factor. Two candidates – maybe Tom Steyer and certainly former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg – appear well positioned on Super Tuesday to mount an offensive for the nomination, particularly if a very unpopular non-establishment candidate emerges – or if the field is still muddled after South Carolina.
Unlike Giuliani, Bloomberg in particular is well funded, promising to spend upwards of $1 billion or $2 billion or more. While Bloomberg is barely registering above 10 percent in national polls, he has shown signs of some progress in various states. And he’s garnering some endorsements from the kinds of people who don’t typically endorse “vanity candidates.”
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In other words, after 2020, the parties will likely continue to take the position that the small states don’t do it right for the current era – and this time the likely candidates could easily conclude that the road to Pennsylvania Avenue no longer gets helped by trips to Des Moines and Manchester.
And the power of Iowa or New Hampshire could very easily diminish.