Let's start with the Democrats. That's more fun. The doddering, wild-eyed socialist was expected to beat the entitled liar, but this was quite the beating: Bernie 60 percent; Hillary 38 percent. Now yeah, it was expected that Bernie would win New Hampshire considering he's from next-door Vermont and the two states are like one of those yin yangs liberals like, without the dot in the middle, and without the roundness, and without . . . OK, never mind the yin yang.
But did anyone expect Hillary to lose by 22 points? Remember, she actually beat Obama here in 2008. Also remember, Bernie Sanders is not even a Democrat. He's a socialist, and unlike Obama, he doesn't mind everyone knowing he's a socialist. He's also 74 years old and doesn't exactly boast the most impressive record of legislative effectiveness in the Senate.
The Democrat result in New Hampshire reflects the state of the race and it really comes down to three things: 1. The Democrat base doesn't mind the fact that Bernie is a socialist because for the most part so are they. If anything, he's made them more brave about admitting it. 2. Hillary is not an appealing candidate, at all, to anyone. She thought voters were going to get excited about the historic prospect of the first woman president, and they might have if they'd been given an appealing woman to get behind. But they weren't. They were given Hillary Clinton, and for so many reasons we've outlined so often here, they don't want her. 3. Hillary just assumed she could waltz to the nomination because it was her turn and it was owed to her, and when it turned out she actually had a race on her hands, her campaign was unprepared for it and had (and has) no idea what to do.
This doesn't mean Bernie is going to win the nomination. It's one thing to win in New Hampshire, but let's see if his supporters are really correct when they say that Hillary's southern firewall is a myth. I do think it's possible that her implosion is only just beginning. She is that bad a candidate. But I think conventional wisdom among Democrats is still that she has the best chance of winning the general election, and absent a viable alternative, it's hard to believe they really let her crash and burn. Then again, is there actually anything they can do to stop it?
On the Republican side, it's a little harder to glean the message, beyond the obvious that it was a very big night for Trump - whose win was gigantic and decisive. New Hampshire is a tricky state to draw conclusions from for Republicans because it's much more moderate than the Republican primary electorate at large. John Kasich's second-place finish is your best evidence of that, and beyond that things got pretty bunched up with Cruz, Bush, Rubio, Christie and Fiorina next in that order.
In no particular order:
Rubio winning no delegates at all makes this a tough night for him. I don't think it's fatal for him by any means but he's under a lot more pressure now to start producing victories, and the fact that so many political-class types have gotten behind him in recent weeks doesn't seem to have helped him at all, which I think is more indicative of the fact that the chasm between the GOP political types and Republican voters is wider than it's ever been.
Cruz wins one of those "victories" of the he-won-by-not-losing-as-badly-as-expected variety, which is mainly a win in the sense that he doesn't get pummeled in the media - at least not for his performance in this particular primary. Cruz can head into South Carolina without having lost any real momentum since Iowa, to the extent there is momentum in politics - and of course Rob points out to me that momentum by definition always slows to a stop eventually.
And that brings us to Jeb, which has never had any and doesn't now. The northeast is supposed to be where the patrician Bushes are able to do well, what with its proximity to Kennebunkport and all that. If ever there was a part of the country where Republicans would buy what Jeb's selling, you'd think it would be here. And yet the centrist problem-solver types preferred Kasich to him (excepting those who backed Trump, of course), and he fell to fifth. If you want to make the case that there's any good news her for Jeb, you knock yourself out. I am not a Jeb hater, and I remain a big Dubya fan, but this campaign is going nowhere. He may well stay in because I hear he's got another $60 million and he's got to spend it on something. But he can't buy votes.
My guess is that Carson and Fiorina will exit the race, and Christie may do so as well. I'm a big fan of Fiorina but for whatever reason she didn't persuade enough people to catapult herself into the top tier.
As for Trump himself, look, you can tell yourself all you want that he can't possibly win - but that second-place finish in Iowa was pretty solid, and last night in New Hampshire he won 10 delegates. No one else won more than three. Delegates are what you need to win the nomination, and at this point he has more than anyone. The media insists on treating the New Hampshire primary as a gigantic political story, so how do they then turn around and say it's insignificant that a particular candidate won it by gigantic margin?
You can't. No one is handing him the nomination, and he has real challenges ahead, but Trump is a very serious candidate - and yes, he could be the nominee. National Review doesn't appear to have had much effect, and if I were a movement conservative horrified at Trump's ascendancy, I think I might spend a little more time wondering why no one more to my liking was connecting with voters like Trump is. All the attacks on Trump as not a real conservative - some of them persuasive - don't seem to have mattered. At least not in New Hampshire.
Here's Trump's victory speech last night:
Let's start with the Democrats. That's more fun. The doddering, wild-eyed socialist was expected to beat the entitled liar, but this was quite the beating: Bernie 60 percent; Hillary 38 percent. Now yeah, it was expected that Bernie would win New Hampshire considering he's from next-door Vermont and the two states are like one of those yin yangs liberals like, without the dot in the middle, and without the roundness, and without . . . OK, never mind the yin yang.
But did anyone expect Hillary to lose by 22 points? Remember, she actually beat Obama here in 2008. Also remember, Bernie Sanders is not even a Democrat. He's a socialist, and unlike Obama, he doesn't mind everyone knowing he's a socialist. He's also 74 years old and doesn't exactly boast the most impressive record of legislative effectiveness in the Senate.
