I must admit I was surprised regarding the landslide last night.
Globe will tell you what happened and what's ahead as you and I recover -- as if it means something.
Finally, it was time for N.H. voters to choose
"A punch-drunk Jeb Bush carries on" by Eric Fehrnstrom February 10, 2016
In the 1962 film “Requiem for a Heavyweight,” a punch drunk boxer played by Anthony Quinn is at the end of his career but is forced by the people around him to keep fighting. As the indignities pile up, his final humiliation is dressing in an embarrassing costume for a staged wrestling match.
I can’t help but think of Jeb Bush as the defeated boxer and the South Carolina primary as that wrestling match.
Bush, the odds-on favorite when he started his campaign last year, was headed for a third- or fourth-place finish in New Hampshire last night. That followed a sixth-place finish in the Iowa caucuses. The polls currently have Bush trailing in fourth place in South Carolina.
I bet he will now win it. The narrative is already being set.
In politics, it’s rare to come across a person as decent as Jeb Bush.
(Blog editor exhaled in disgust)
His record as a conservative pro-growth and antitax governor of Florida is enviable. He has a strong history of job creation. He has offered the most substantive policy positions of any candidate.
Of course Bush’s choice to push on in the wake of stinging losses in the first two states is his right. The decision to exit the race is a highly personal one.
Bloggers face that same choice.
Bush will argue that the Republican contest remains fluid, but the fact remains he was supposed to be the presumptive nominee and has not won anywhere.
The Bush forces have already embarked on a major course change: his super PAC is featuring President George W. Bush in a new ad.
They think that will help?
That they’re doing so now, after deliberately avoiding the association for so long, indicates Bush has run out of options. He’s resorting to low-percentage shots from the three-point line.
It’s not hard to see where things went wrong. While pitchforks were raised in opposition to business as usual in Washington and America’s broken immigration system, Bush publicly mused that he was willing “to lose the primary in order to win the general.”
And there you go.
As a rule, self-contradictory statements do not make for good strategy. What Bush meant by it, however, didn’t become clear until the first GOP debate hosted by Fox News last August, when Chris Wallace asked Bush if he stood by a 2014 statement that illegal immigrants break the law as “an act of love.”
“I do. I believe that the great majority of people coming here illegally have no other option. They want to provide for their family,” Bush said, adding “there should be a path to earned legal status” for immigrants in the country unlawfully.
Bush’s heart is in the right place. But at a time when every other Republican candidate was moving to the right on immigration, it was as tone-deaf a statement as you could make. It turns out “losing the primary to win the general” wasn’t a blueprint for victory; it was a suicide note.
Other mishaps followed. Bush bungled the question on whether he supported his brother’s decision to invade Iraq. He launched an ill-conceived attack on Marco Rubio’s missed votes. He embraced the establishment that voters said they despised.
But the problem with Bush’s campaign is like the Nile: It has many tributaries but only one source. The origin of Bush’s woes was a flawed strategy that assumed he could run to the left of his party on immigration.
Bush could still recover. As of the end of January, Bush’s super PAC had close to $60 million cash on hand. He has a great team of people working for him. More likely, though, is that Bush will end up like that fictional heavyweight played by Anthony Quinn, ignoring the jeers of the crowd as he suffers one more humbling loss of face.
I'm not counting him out.
--more--"
Neither is the Globe:
"Jeb Bush faces mixed prospects after N.H." by Jim O’Sullivan Globe Staff February 09, 2016
MANCHESTER, N.H. – Jeb Bush, who launched his campaign as his party’s odds-on favorite for the nomination, declared a measure of victory Tuesday as he battled for third place while primary votes were still being counted.
Bush outperformed many handicappers’ late-stage expectations, according to preliminary results late Tuesday, which put Bush squarely in a fight for third place behind billionaire Donald Trump and Governor John Kasich of Ohio.
Needling pundits who had all but declared his bid doomed, Bush told a cheering crowd at Manchester Community College, “While the reality TV star’s still doing well, it looks like you all have reset the race.”
Bush added, “This campaign is not dead; we’re going on to South Carolina.”
Looks like he won even if he lost, huh?
Hey, when you constantly shift the bar of expectations.... (sigh).
Bush’s avoidance of a back-of-the-pack finish helped sustain a campaign that has been supported by a high-dollar super PAC but, almost since its launch, has failed to meet expectations.
Still, Bush backers were sanguine Tuesday night that his resume and ability to appeal to disparate constituencies would sustain his campaign. A signs-of-life showing Tuesday was crucial, several said.
“Jeb has the money to go the distance and certainly through March 15, but it’s tough sledding if you’re out of the top five,” said Rob Gray, a Republican consultant who has advised Bush’s campaign on its New England strategy.
So that is where the cut-off was last night?
The apparent pileup among the party’s governors and other more mainstream candidates, who have been left an opening by the dominance of Trump, leaves Bush with mixed prospects as the campaign shifts south and west.
A former two-term Florida governor and both son and brother of presidents, Bush brought major advantages into New Hampshire, even if the state had not been overly kind to his family’s political fortunes in the past. Republicans here, as Bush himself has noted during campaign events this year, discarded his father’s 1980 victory in Iowa in favor of Ronald Reagan. And in 2000 the state’s GOP primary voters backed Senator John McCain over his brother.
The narrative of that paragraph is so contradictory it doesn't merit comment.
Even his prospective finish in the top four Tuesday night came at a heavy cost to Bush.
Uh-oh.
He has now irked followers of onetime protégé US Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, and both his campaign and its auxiliary super PAC spent heavily in the nation’s first primary state New Hampshire.
Senator Lindsey Graham, who quit his own campaign in December and backed Bush, said Bush would likely fare well in South Carolina, the next state to vote in the GOP primary, promising to “make this a referendum on commander-in-chief.”
“The Bush name is golden in my state,” Graham told reporters. “The Bush people are respected in my state.”
In other words, the fix is in!!!
Graham acknowledged that Bush had improved as a candidate as Tuesday neared.
“I just think you get better at this,” he said. “I think Jeb had his back to the wall and he rose to the occasion.”
Pffft!
He was the same as he's been!
In the primary’s closing days, Bush expanded his scope of fire from Trump to include Kasich. Like Bush, Kasich had sought to convince primary voters that he was his party’s best chance to compete with Democrats and, like Bush, appeared to finish in the running to be the party’s more moderate alternative.
Bush’s team kept its focus on Kasich as results came in Tuesday. “He doesn’t have a constituency past New Hampshire,” Bush communications director Tim Miller told reporters. “He ran a one-state campaign.”
“He doesn’t have a viable path to the nomination at all,” Miller added.
They are right about that. His support was mostly independent Democrat, according to the narrative. How does he win the REPUBLICAN nomination, huh?
All this just keeps the diversionary show going.
At the primary-night party in Manchester, Bush’s supporters held out hope he could emerge as the GOP’s last man standing.
“People have been saying this for a long time, but I think Trump is going to go away,” said Norm Olsen, a Portsmouth software manager. "Trump will go away before this is over, and then we'll be looking at who the real candidates are. And Jeb's viable for that."
OMG!
HOW CRYPTIC!!
I mean, after last night and with his money and skills, Trump isn't going away at all.
What does that insinuation really mean?
Something BAD gonna happen to Trump, like an "ACCIDENT?"
An RFK job to the back of the head by some security mole that will then be blamed on some angry Muslim or immigrant?
Look, I don't even like the guy and probably won't be voting for him (if the PTB piss me off I may grab a GOP ballot for spite, but right now it's Bernie. Clinton and Bush must be stopped at all costs), but I DON'T WANT HIM ASSASSINATED. I don't any ANY OF THEM to come to harm despite the odiousness of the whole crowd! That would be a TERRIBLE THING for our country.
What I want are CLEAN and FAIR ELECTIONS, and LET THE CHIPS FALL WHERE THEY MAY!
--more--"
Why the rewrite, btw?
A drunken change of the story?
I've seen that before!
Time to start looking forward:
"The end of the beginning" by Scot Lehigh Globe Columnist February 11, 2016
Donald Trump is the only face card in a fractured field, but he’s a jack, not a king or a queen. At some point, some of that will become apparent – won’t it?
For some reason the printed terms "hostile takeover" of the GOP was dropped in favor of that last plea.
Yeah, the will of the voters is a hostile takeover. That pretty much sums up the view of the spewing ruling cla$$, doesn't it?
John Kasich, the second-place finisher, will now get the attention he has long deserved — and will have a chance to make his case on a national stage. Even as Kasich’s troops celebrated his success, commentators were predicting trouble as the campaign moves beyond New Hampshire.
Yup, and am I ever tired of the divisive war terminology being injected into every damn article.
Cruz, the winner in Iowa, didn’t show any particular ability to expand his appeal in New Hampshire, but his strength has always been in the south. That being the case, his Granite State finish doesn’t say much one way or another about his future viability.
He'll be the Santorum of 2016 when it comes to delegates.
Left for dead — or near-dead, anyway — Jeb Bush bounced back to a stay-alive finish. He has the money and organization to move forward. And South Carolina, the next primary, is a state that has been kind to other Bush candidacies.
Eventually this will winnow down to a two-person race, Trump vs. Bush. That's why Trump has been going after them.
Marco Rubio is a different case. He had, strangely, been considered the most impressive of the so-called establishment-lane candidates. After his dismal debate performance, he’s now campaigning under a cloud of considerable doubt. Yet this wasn’t a disastrous or crushing showing for him; at deadline, he looked like he would finish reasonably close to Cruz and Bush.
He's done. He was raised high so he could be lowered later.
The view here is that all those candidates can plausibly press forward to the next contests.
And I'm sure they will.
So who is dropping like flies?
But the New Hampshire truths will be tougher for Chris Christie, Carly Fiorina, and Ben Carson — and, oh yes, Jim Gilmore.
Related: Donnie Wahlberg shows his support for Carly Fiorina
Time to face the music, Carly.
As they leave the Granite State, their candidacies are in a tailspin....
--more--"
The first to crash:
"For Marco Rubio, what a difference a week makes" by Andrew Ryan Globe Staff February 10, 2016
MANCHESTER, N.H. — Senator Marco Rubio appeared to be heading for a distant fifth-place finish Tuesday in New Hampshire’s Republican presidential primary, a stinging disappointment for a candidate who brimmed with momentum after his strong finish in Iowa.
Rubio had increasingly pitched himself as the most electable member of the splintered GOP field, but the Florida senator stumbled badly in a debate Saturday after a withering attack from Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey. Since the missteps, Rubio had tamped down expectations for his performance in New Hampshire and alluded to a long grind ahead for delegates en route to the Republican National Convention in July.
The listless mood at Rubio’s primary night rally at the Radisson Hotel in Manchester struck Jim Dunham, who agonized over his vote before settling on the senator.
“I thought he would actually eke out third place, but the debate Saturday hurt him,” said Dunham, a 52-year-old Nashua resident who owns a software company. “But I think he’ll recover.”
I don't think so.
In his final New Hampshire push in the aftermath of the debate, Rubio made no predictions of victory and instead talked about the ongoing battle for delegates. The winner in New Hampshire’s Republican primary, businessman Donald Trump, had led in New Hampshire polls since summer, Rubio noted in the waning days. Some candidates had campaigned exclusively in the state, he said.
What mattered, Rubio said as voters flocked to the polls, was garnering a share of delegates that could prove critical as the race moves forward.
“In a race like this with so many people running, delegates are going to be really relevant,” Rubio told WMUR-TV in an interview outside a polling place at Gilbert H. Hood Middle School in Derry. “We’re going to leave here with more delegates than we came in [with] and then go into South Carolina and continue to build.”
That marked a significant change in tone since Rubio’s third-place finish in Iowa. For a week, the Florida senator captured national attention as the candidate who could unite a Republican Party splintered by anger and ideology.
But as Rubio surged in some polls, he faced withering criticism in a debate Saturday that pundits described as the worst night of his campaign. Christie mocked Rubio for repeating what the New Jersey governor derided as a “25-second memorized speech.”
His debate performance continued to haunt Rubio Tuesday. A man wearing a crudely designed robot costume — a Rubio-Bot — greeted the candidate at a Manchester polling place, mocking the senator with quips such as “I only know talking points.”
Still, enthusiasm remained high among Rubio’s supporters, who passed out hand warmers to stave off freezing temperatures as they clutched signs.
Outside the polling place at Windham High School, Rubio arrived to a raucous reception from several dozen volunteers performing a call-and-answer chant, with a few yelling “Marco” and the others answering “Rubio.” A handful of Trump volunteers tried unsuccessfully to disrupt the Rubio chant by yelling “We want Trump.”
With his two sons in tow, Rubio drew a crush of photographers and reporters so large it clogged the sidewalk leading to the school. One voter complained directly to the senator, saying the crowd was forcing him to walk into the snow and he did not like the chants of Rubio volunteers.
“We don’t like that in New Hampshire,” the man told Rubio. “I changed my vote.”
OMG!
Rubio apologized to the man and continued to thank his volunteers, signing autographs and posing for photos.
--more--"
Time to face the music, Marco.
"After traditional N.H. campaign, Kasich poised to take 2nd place in GOP race" by Sarah Schweitzer Globe Staff February 10, 2016
CONCORD, N.H. — In a year of the so-called angry voter, Ohio Governor John Kasich remained upbeat, touting his fiscal bona fides and avoiding criticism of his fire-throwing opponents in a state where anger perhaps is at lower tide than elsewhere, with unemployment well below the national average.
Remember that regarding the New Hampshire economy before we leave, 'kay?
“We never went negative because we have more good to sell,” he told a crowd in Concord. “Maybe, just maybe, at a time when clearly change is in the air, maybe we are turning the page on a dark page of American politics, because tonight the light overcame the darkness.”
OMG!
I'm sorry, but the Christ-like complex makes this guy scary!
A solid showing in New Hampshire was vital for Kasich, who devoted virtually all his campaign time to the state, to the exclusion of Iowa. He took a dismal eighth place in Iowa’s Republican caucuses last week, winning less than 2 percent of the vote.
He's looking at the same totals as we move south and west.
Kasich drove his campaign with traditional New Hampshire primary politicking. While Donald Trump, the first-place winner, held rallies in cavernous auditoriums, Kasich powered 106 town meetings in veteran halls and town offices, taking hundreds of questions and returning quick-witted answers that were equal parts Washington wonk-speak and aw-shucks asides.
As a result, Kasich appeared likely to edge out several other GOP candidates competing for the support of mainstream voters.
He made sure to point out along the way that history was on his side; no Republican has won the White House without winning Ohio.
No, it's not, one was ever won it without winning either their Iowa or New Hampshire, but whatever.
In a year that has seen establishment candidates cast aside, Kasich rose above with credentials that bear little resemblance to a renegade. A former state senator and nine-term US House member who later worked at Lehman Brothers, he was elected governor in 2010.
He claimed the support of major GOP players in New Hampshire, including former senator John E. Sununu and former congressman Charlie Bass, and he went on to win endorsements from a slew of New Hampshire newspapers, as well as The Boston Globe and The New York Times.
How could those last two have helped?
But more than anything, he hammered the notion that he was the choice for people looking for a middle way in a state where independent voters make up 40 percent of the electorate.
He was the “right porridge,” that doesn't taste good anywhere else.
There is historical precedent for Kasich’s path forward: In 1992, another governor lost the Iowa caucuses, then came in second in the New Hampshire primary, and went on to win his party’s nomination — and the White House.
He returned this year, trying to make a Comeback Kid of his wife....
They never mention him by name, but he was a DEMOCRAT!
--more--"
For some reason, the Globe didn't give Ted Cruz his own stand-alone article.
"Donald Trump crushes his GOP rivals in N.H." by Matt Viser Globe Staff February 10, 2016
MANCHESTER, N.H. — Businessman Donald Trump on Tuesday easily seized the New Hampshire primary from a host of more traditional candidates, notching his first victory and proving that he can rally an angry coalition around his call for change and convert the energy of his large rallies into actual votes.
Trump captured 35.2 percent of the vote, with about 86.7 percent of the precincts reporting. The resounding victory provides strong validation to Trump’s effort to upend the Republican status quo. He now takes his swaggering, controversial campaign into more socially conservative states on the primary calendar, where he will face stronger headwinds.
The closely watched battle for second place remained tight, as a pileup of establishment candidates fought to become the alternative to Trump heading out of New Hampshire.
Governor John Kasich of Ohio was in second place with 15.9 percent. The rest of the field was too close to call: Ted Cruz followed with 11.5 percent, Jeb Bush at 11.1 percent, and Marco Rubio at 10.6 percent. Chris Christie — at a disappointing sixth place with 7.5 percent — said he is going home to New Jersey to await final results and determine what’s next for his campaign.
Although the early results showed a late surge for Kasich, the tight grouping denied any single establishment candidate a burst of momentum coming out of New Hampshire, with none able to boast breakout strength. Instead, those candidates now face a war of attrition heading into Nevada, South Carolina, and then the March 1 Super Tuesday primary, which is loaded with conservative states in the South.
The election was on track to set a turnout record on a cold but sunny day, and the race remained extraordinarily volatile right up until the final day, with nearly half of voters saying they didn’t make up their mind until the last week.
Trump caught the GOP establishment by surprise last summer. He generated a sustained uprising in the party on the strength of his outsized personality, a torrent of insults and profane statements aimed at his enemies, and a frontal assault on Washington convention. He tapped the fears of middle-class whites about the global economy, immigration, and terrorism by singling out Mexicans and Muslims for scorn.
As soon as CNN projected Trump the winner at 8 p.m., the crowd at the Executive Court Banquet Facility here burst into applause, hoisted beers and foam fingers into the air, and chanted “Trump! Trump! Trump!”
Except for Cruz and Trump, each of the other candidates now must buck history to be successful: No one has become the nominee in modern political history without winning Iowa or New Hampshire.
How you enjoying the mixed messages?
Gave you a headache?
Kasich led the pack among candidates betting their candidacies on New Hampshire. He built his campaign on appealing to independents, and he used a sunnier message, referring to himself as “the prince of light.” He held more than 100 town halls, selling himself as a pragmatic two-term Ohio governor who could work with Democrats without demonizing them.
“We never went negative because we have more good to sell,” Kasich said to a crowd in Concord.
“Maybe, just maybe at a time when clearly change is in the air, maybe we are turning the page on a dark page of American politics because tonight the light overcame the darkness.”
Yeah, I saw that.
Rubio’s fifth-place showing in early returns represented a quick downturn for a candidate who just days ago appeared to be closing in on the coveted second-place position. But a shaky debate performance three days before the primary, in which the Florida senator appeared rattled as he repeated the same line several times, marked a turning point. Undecided voters appeared to leave him in droves.
Not according to the campaign report above.
The early result for Bush, the former Florida governor, placed him just ahead of Rubio and was likely to stoke their increasingly bitter rivalry. Several months ago, after struggling to recover from Trump’s relentless branding of Bush as “low energy,” Bush reoriented his campaign to focus almost exclusively on New Hampshire. He placed a bet that he could win voters over with substance and policy, that there would be a hunger for a more sober candidate, and that he would be rewarded for holding town halls across the state.
And the best he could do was fourth?
Bush has vowed to fight on, hoping he can make a play in a state that has a history of helping his family following disappointments in New Hampshire. His father, George H.W. Bush, won South Carolina in 1988 and 1992, and his brother won in 2000. Jeb Bush’s campaign has been planning to have President George W. Bush campaign for him next week in South Carolina.
I'm expecting it to be stolen.
Joe Habib, an 83-year-old retired engineer, voted twice for President Obama, but on Tuesday morning at the Ingram Senior Center in Salem, N.H., he said he had decided on Trump.
“I think Washington sucks, if you will,” he said. “And I think Trump can fix it.”
I don't think anyone can fix it, but we all feel that way about the first part.
Joe Kellner, a 67-year-old Republican, said this is the first GOP primary he’s been excited about in years.
“I like Trump, I like him, I like what he’s doing, but I think that he might be a little too radical,” he said. “I believe he’d actually change government. I think the rest of them are politicians, that’s all they are.”
The New Hampshire primary result remained uncertain right up until the last minute. Voters here are notoriously late-deciders, but on Tuesday they tested that to the limits. Some said they were unsure of how they would vote even as they trudged to the polls through slush left behind by a Monday snowstorm.
Rubio made one guy change it on the sidewalk!
In the aftermath of the Iowa caucuses, several candidates dropped out, and the same could happen again in the coming days. Carly Fiorina, who got 4.2 percent, and Ben Carson, with 2.3 percent, both had their moments in the fall but have struggled since to gain any traction. They trailed far behind in New Hampshire and may have a hard time continuing to finance and justify their bids.
Christie spent more time in New Hampshire than any other candidate, making 190 stops on 38 visits. He was stymied by questions over some of his changed positions and lingering concern over his administration’s role in a scandal that shut down highway lanes and backed up the approach to the George Washington Bridge.
Christie, in subdued remarks to a somber crowd Tuesday, said he is going home to New Jersey, instead of on to South Carolina, to figure out what’s next but his tone and his words indicated that his campaign, almost wholly premised on a good Granite State showing, is nearing its end.
That's the “the magic and the mystery of politics.”
Perhaps the best moment of his campaign for Christie came during the debate on Saturday night, when he showed dexterity, humor, and strength in his blatant criticism of Rubio. But it appears as though that may have hurt Rubio more than it helped Christie.
Cruz came to New Hampshire after winning the Iowa caucuses, and he spent most of the week stumping around the state. But his socially conservative, religiously infused message failed to resonate in a socially moderate, more secular state. He now heads to much friendlier terrain throughout the South....
The Globe was certainly very unfriendly to him.
--more--"
Related: New Hampshire Republicans sink their credibility
I guess he didn't vote for Trump.
NEXT!
"N.H. sends message to the next states in line" by James Pindell Globe Staff February 10, 2016
MANCHESTER, N.H. — New Hampshire is supposed to be the sensible nominating contest. Its voters have a track record of correcting extremist tides ready to wash over the parties. Or as the locals like to say, “Iowa picks corn, and we pick presidents.”
But every once in a while, New Hampshire voters like to deliver a message instead. And that’s what they did Tuesday night by rejecting the two foremost political dynasties in modern American politics in favor of two anti-establishment candidates.
I applaud them up there!
By picking Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, New Hampshire has sent voters in South Carolina and other upcoming primary states a pair of outside-the-mainstream politicians with vastly differing ideologies, whose messages will now be tested in unfamiliar territory, in an increasingly fast-paced political calendar.
Next, Republicans head to South Carolina to compete in the state’s Feb. 20 primary, where Trump also leads in polls, followed by Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. Ohio Governor John Kasich, who won respectability placing second, has barely spent any time in the Palmetto State.
Come again?
If anything, South Carolina is just as primed for Trump’s continued success as New Hampshire.
I thought it was noteworthy.
The state’s GOP primary skews toward social conservatives, much like the Iowa caucuses, but it’s more diverse with a large chunk of business-minded Republicans as well. Even if Cruz keeps up his popularity with state’s social conservatives — the source of his Iowa success — Trump has secured an ideal coalition to win that primary as well.
Uh-huh.
A few days later, Republicans will host a caucus in Nevada on Feb. 23. Not many of the remaining candidates have put much effort into the state, save former Florida governor Jeb Bush and Rubio. The results aren’t expected to make a major impact on the race for the nomination.
Then I won't spend much time on it.
On paper, Hillary Clinton’s chances for a late-February rebound should be strong. Democrats compete in the Nevada caucuses on Feb. 20 and in the South Carolina primary on Feb. 27.
I don't know; she really got clobbered last night.
In both states, Clinton has a strong base of support among minorities — Latinos in Nevada, and African-Americans in South Carolina.
Recent polls of the South Carolina Democratic primary show Clinton with a 30-point advantage in the state. That may seem insurmountable for Sanders, but Clinton had an even larger lead in New Hampshire as late as last summer.
And momentum can shift quickly in the days following New Hampshire — especially with Sanders riding the good feelings of a double-digit victory in New Hampshire.
That brings the candidates from both parties to March 1, when more than a dozen states will host nominating contests, including Massachusetts and several in the South. These “Super Tuesday” states dole out delegates proportionally, which means every top candidate could walk away with points on the board. As a result, it’s difficult to see how the primary is decided any time soon.
The prospect of a long fight is not good news for Clinton or any Republican not named Trump. With four different winners emerging from the first two nominating states, the pair of presidential nominations now become a war of attrition, testing both political and financial sustainability. And that’s all the more reason why New Hampshire voters — perhaps more so than any other early nominating contest — will have set an anti-establishment tone for weeks to come.
Exit polls taken for CNN found that Sanders won women voters 55 percent to 44 percent. He also won 72 percent of independent voters and 78 percent of first-time voters.
WOW! If those numbers hold nationwide, she's toast!
He won every age group except those older than 65 — and did especially well among younger voters.
Voters so rejected the political elite that they chose two candidates who each won their first primary ever in their respective parties. Sanders is not technically a member of the Democratic Party, and Trump, the GOP victor, most recently became a Republican four years ago.
Because they mismanaged the country while $erving them$elves.
“What happened here in New Hampshire in terms of an enthusiastic and aroused electorate . . . that is what will happen all over this country,’’ Sanders told his victory party Tuesday night.
New Hampshire has sent a startling message like this before.
In the 1968 primary, New Hampshire Democrats rejected an unpopular war by putting US Senator Eugene McCarthy within striking range of President Johnson. Eight years later, they sent another message — contempt for political corruption — by making a peanut farmer, Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter, a New Hampshire primary winner.
In 1992, state Republicans had also had enough, giving Pat Buchanan enough juice to scare a sitting president, George H.W. Bush.
That wasn't mentioned in an earlier Bush article above. WTF?
This year, New Hampshire issued a full-throttled rejection of the political elite. A year ago, Sanders and Trump barely scored on state primary polls.
How hostile!
But much like those previous contests, their candidacies have been in the making for years. Trump’s victory is the next iteration of the Tea Party movement; Sanders represents the popularization of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
They are both the product of continued economic anxiety — even in New Hampshire, a state with one of the best economies in the country.
Above they told us things were calm because of that economy!!!
--more--"
And now for the other side:
"Bernie Sanders defeats Hillary Clinton in N.H. primary" by Annie Linskey and Akilah Johnson Globe Staff February 10, 2016
MANCHESTER, N.H. — Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont trounced Hillary Clinton in the New Hampshire presidential primary Tuesday, issuing a sharp rebuke to establishment politics that will likely set off warning bells among the Democratic elite.
The win, coming on the heels of his razor-thin loss in Iowa, officially establishes Sanders as a major threat to Clinton and one her campaign is taking far more seriously than it did just weeks ago.
Sanders received 59.9 percent of the vote with 87 percent of precincts reporting, to Clinton’s 38.4 percent.
WOW!
“Together we have sent a message that will echo from Wall Street to Washington, from Maine to California,” said Sanders in his victory speech. “And that is that the government of our great country belongs to all of the people and not just a handful of wealthy campaign contributors and their super PACs.
Sanders concluded his 27-minute victory speech, which was interrupted often by a raucous crowd cheering enthusiastically, looking forward: “What began last week in Iowa, what voters here in New Hampshire confirmed tonight is nothing short of the beginning of a political revolution. Now, it’s on to Nevada, South Carolina, and beyond.”
Clinton congratulated Sanders when she spoke at her primary night party at Southern New Hampshire University but also struck a defiant tone. She acknowledged the profound frustration felt by many voters, and cast herself as the change-maker best equipped to improve the lives of voters.
“People have every right to be angry. But they’re also hungry, hungry for solutions,” she said. “I will work harder than anyone to actually make the changes and make your lives better.”
You are not the one to provide them! Bill had his chance and so did you with Obama. You failed.
Since early January the once-sleepy Democratic contest evolved into a bare-knuckled fight as Sanders worked to show that he could transfer the energy that filled his rallies over the summer into votes. Daunting hurdles still loom for Sanders, who will have to capitalize on the win to broaden his appeal beyond the young, mostly white liberal voters who have so far propelled his candidacy.
He did in New Hampshire and the women have been complaining about defections, so WTF?
What is with this slop?
Clinton’s double-digit loss marks a souring of the relationship between New Hampshire and the former first family. Voters here have twice rescued Clinton campaigns, first in 1992 when Bill Clinton — battling revelations about an extramarital affair — spun a second-place finish into a victory. Then in 2008, Hillary Clinton’s come-from-behind victory over Barack Obama kept her candidacy alive for months.
Awwwwww!
She addressed her long history with the state in her concession speech. “I want to say I still love New Hampshire and I always will,” Clinton said.
She couldn't have been thinking that, and the sports radio guys said she sounded crazy as they played her final clip.
This election cycle, however, Clinton struggled to inspire voters here — particularly the younger generation — with her message of pragmatic progressivism.
Because she and her husband have failed. They did real good for the Clinton Foundation, but that was about it.
And if the Democrats aren't getting the youth vote....
“I think Bernie has a fire that Hillary doesn’t,” Cara Vanuden, an 18-year-old freshman at Dartmouth College said after casting a ballot for him Tuesday.
She just looking for a date.
Meanwhile, Sanders tapped into a deep well of angst with his calls for a political revolution.
“He was the first politician who didn’t confuse me with his answers,” said Janice Starkey, a 43-year-old Hanover resident who voted for Sanders.
“And I love that he’s not taking money from the billionaires,” she said, repeating a catch-phrase of Sanders’ campaign almost verbatim.
Clinton stressed her history-making campaign to become the country’s first female president at multiple stops in New Hampshire, and was counting on women voters to power her campaign.
I don't know if the pandering to gender is going to get it done. Just insulting women is all.
But in the final days of the New Hampshire race, two iconic female figures — Gloria Steinem and former secretary of state Madeleine Albright — scolded young women who were supporting Sanders, creating backlash among those Clinton was hoping to appeal to.
Ooooooops!
In the closing days in New Hampshire, the race became increasingly negative, with the Clintons pushing out the idea that Sanders has taken money from Wall Street for his Senate campaigns, and is therefore being unfair when he slams her for taking millions from the industry. The Sanders camp was quick to point out that money from large financial institutions supporting Sanders’ Senate campaign flowed through the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which donates money to all incumbent Democrats.
It's about her, not him, and she fails to see it.
See:
"Gender and ties to the Democratic establishment aren’t Clinton’s real problems. The voters’ lack of trust in her is the drag."
Do you trust her? I don't.
The two candidates will take to the debate stage again Thursday night in Wisconsin. Then all eyes turn to Nevada, a state with a sizable Hispanic population where Clinton tends to have more support. The Democratic caucuses there will take place Feb. 20.
Why?
The Sanders campaign has said that its polling shows the Vermont senator is making inroads among Hispanics under 50 years old — a notion that Clinton’s camp rejected last week.
New Hampshire can only help.
“We’ll see,” said Joel Benenson, Clinton’s pollster. “We’ll see if Senator Sanders’ predictions hold up or not.”
Uh-huh.
The FIX is IN, 'eh?
Clinton campaign telegraphed its concerns about New Hampshire frequently over the past few days, trying to keep expectations low.
And the result was still disappointing. 22 points!?
A frequent refrain among top Clinton aides was that Sanders held a geographic advantage because he’s from a neighboring state.
“It’s hard to underestimate the neighboring state advantage in this race,” Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook said last week at a breakfast in Manchester sponsored by Bloomberg Politics.
That doesn't wash when the conventional myth is the two are so opposite. Vermont is supposed to be left wing and New Hampshire libertarian.
Clinton also took the highly unusual step of leaving the state during a prime campaigning time for a trip to Flint, Mich., Sunday. Sanders also left briefly to appear on “Saturday Night Live.”
People saw through what she did, and I'm asleep by that time on Saturdays.
The loss also tarnishes the storied “Shaheen Machine” — a clique of Democratic operatives and field workers with a long string of victories under their belts associated with Senator Jeanne Shaheen.
Awwww.
They all lined up to work for Clinton, leaving Sanders with a less-experienced ground staff that initially seemed to be struggling with the onslaught of interest from volunteers.
Imagine if he had been organized!
But in the final days of campaigning, even Clinton seemed aware of the likely outcome. She frequently would say that she was going to fight for New Hampshire, even if everyone in the state isn’t ready to fight for her.
Those who voted for her Tuesday tended to cite her grit....
That's when I did that with my teeth.
--more--"
Related: Ted Danson, wife stump for Hillary Clinton in N.H.
Sam!
Also see: How Bernie Sanders made Hillary Clinton look old
Even the sports guys on the radio this morning noticed that.
Time to go back to bed.
Actually, it looks like I have more snow shoveling to do today. It's already accumulating out here.
NEXT DAY UPDATES:
I feel much better and back to my old self today.
"Trump, Sanders planted seeds of N.H. primary win nearly 2 years ago" by James Pindell Globe Staff February 11, 2016
MANCHESTER, N.H. — On April 12, 2014, at the Inaugural Freedom Summit, an event funded by the conservative Koch brothers, one of the richest families in the world, US Senator Ted Cruz from Texas criticized the nation’s top 1 percent of income earners. His message: A corrupt federal government was in cahoots with the nation’s richest citizens, and that nexus of power only made the rich richer through regulations and laws that squeezed the less fortunate.
I'm $ure there is $ome irony in there $omewhere.
A little over a year after Mitt Romney was pounded on the airwaves for laying off workers through his private equity firm, US Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky asked members of this audience to raise their hand if they had ever been laid off or fired from a job.
“If you want to grow the movement, we cannot be the party of fat cats, rich people, and Wall Street,” Paul said. “There is always more of the working class than the owners’ class. I am not against the owner’s class, but I want to tell the workers of America that we are on their side.”
Neither one of you is, and what a $taged fraud.
Then Donald Trump, who took the stage as Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York” blared on the sound system, said this: “There is something we have to do and we have to do it fast. We have to make America great again.”
In that ballroom, the rhetoric suggested something had changed in American politics. It was a rejection of the nation’s ruling elite and the institutions they run: the government, the media, the banks, the unions, the big political donors, the education system, the insurance companies, even the church and sports figures.
And for good rea$on; they have spent the better part of 30 years accruing more and more wealth onto themselves, devastating communities wherever they go and leave, lying to us all, waging mass-murdering wars over such things, and all of it topped of by one sort of scandal or another (corruption or sex usually).
The ruling cla$$ had its shot; I think that's why they are acting like we are no longer here to the point of ignoring. Scary really. It's as if we are all already dead. Is that what 2016 holds for the mass of humanity?
That day nearly two years ago was the beginning of a long, strange New Hampshire campaign — featuring moments that were often stranger than fiction.
Yeah, I know, I was almost going to type -- gulp -- conspiracy theorists above, but it's the U.S. voter in this wonderful representative republic called democrappy.
Trump repeatedly cussed on stage, and often demonstrated an uncanny ability to draw attention to himself.
The swearing doesn't bug me so much, but the attention is due to, well, you know. I'm reading it.
“Presidential selfie girls” traveled the state, trying to nab photos with every candidate. There was the Paul staffer who licked an opposing staffer’s video camera. Bill Clinton, the former president, awkwardly commanded an audience to laugh at his jokes.
PA-THET-IC!
Related: Hey, Bill, exit left
Agreed.
Bush told a different crowd to clap for him when they didn’t.
(Blog editor shakes head. I remember that)
And, on primary day, a 600-pound pig showed up at the Pelham polls.
More than other presidential campaigns, policy positions — even a candidates’ inconsistent policy positions — didn’t matter in New Hampshire this time around. Republican voters didn’t seem to mind Trump only registered as a Republican a few years ago. Similarly, Democrats didn’t care that Sanders still wasn’t technically a member of their party.
Trying to tell them -- and the mouthpiece media here -- $omething. Rig at your own risk.
Instead, the New Hampshire primary was determined by economic populism and the varying size of its two fields. Once as large as 17 candidates, the size of the GOP field split Trump’s opposition, and allowed the unorthodox businessman to be the front-runner.
Looks like a five horse race as we hit the first turn. Trump out in front, Kasich in second a couple lengths behind, Cruz, Bush, Rubio all alongside each other a length back.
Hey, I watch the races sometimes.
Going forward I think Kasich falls back, Bush moves up past Cruz, and Rubio fades. Then it will be a two-horse race with Ted siphoning off delegates to deny Trump in the stretch.
Maybe not. Pre$$ and political punditry sure acting like it's going be Sanders v. Trump.
For Democrats, a small field benefited Sanders, but the seeds of the Trump and Sanders populist candidacies were sewn even before April 2014. The Great Recession had served as a catalyst for revolt among the bases of both political parties, and the economic recovery that followed only amplified it.
What recovery? All the wealth rolling up to the top?
Tea Party movement supporters protested from the right, and the Occupy Wall Street movement protested from the left.
And 5-6 years later, they finally here us?
But on a Saturday in April nearly two years ago, two men took the torch from those movements. Sanders and Trump carried them through Tuesday’s primary, and likely much further and beyond....
Now I know this is all a $how fooled!
And who anointed the Bo$ton Globe to decide the torch bearers for movements they viciously opposed?
--more--"
I know I should be applauding the Globe for finally coming around, but it's too late. They are the reason we are at this point.
I think I'm starting to see clearly again.
UPDATE: In N.H., the circus has packed up and gone home
