Five Things to Look for From New Hampshire
1. Mitt Romney. It’s a foregone conclusion that Mitt Romney will win New Hampshire. The question is, by how much and what will the margin of victory say about his candidacy? A strong showing would be in the high 30s to low 40s. Less than 32 or so, and the narrative continues that he’s a weak front-runner limping out of his own back yard, and ripe for serious challenge as the primary heads south. Under 30 percent and there’s blood in the water.
2. Who finishes in second? Jon Huntsman badly needs a strong second place finish to establish some relevance in the campaign. Most polls here have Ron Paul in second, from 14 to 29 points behind Romney, with either Huntsman or someone else in third. Second place punches a ticket for Huntsman to continue on as a shadow Romney, but with less campaign savvy and a better actual record as governor. He could make a stand in Florida, especially if someone beats Romney in South Carolina and scrambles the race. Third place, especially a weak third or even fourth, and it may be time for him to pack it in. As for Paul, there has been no evidence that he is surging in New Hampshire, and some evidence that he may be fading since finishing third in Iowa. That was a caucus that favored Paul’s campaign style, New Hampshire is a more straightforward vote. He is retiring from Congress and has money to burn, but even he doesn’t see himself actually winning the presidency. If he finishes poorly in New Hampshire, what does he do? His activists have been joining forces with the occupy protesters in New Hampshire, pestering other candidates on the campaign trail.
3. The impact of the revenge candidacy. Negative campaigning works, and New Hampshire has seen its share on TV ads and in stump speeches. Newt Gingrich has a glint in his eye lately after taking a pounding in Iowa, and he and his allied super PACs have taken after “Massachusetts moderate” Mitt Romney, not to win here but looking ahead toward the next contest. The negativity won’t defeat Romney here, but may expose him in the more conservative South Carolina, where his tax hikes and RomneyCare may turn voters off. But what will it do to Gingrich’s own candidacy?
Bryan: please tell Governor Perry to fix his campaign website. They do not think it worth the trouble to even post his campaign schedule. I actually got an email response on that and other suggestions to make that homepage his “Welcome Mat” since he did very well in the NH debates and almost 40% of NH voters were still undecided. Lost website opportunity to exceed expectations in NH. Two days of finding an embed of his speech to the NH legislature completely ignored.
I still think anything under 35% for Romney will have him limping out of NH, but seems expectations were lowered by Romney last night to anything below 30%.
It is NOT just GOP voters who want ABO and ABR.
40% of Americans who want job growth and fiscal discipline also want ABO and ABR.
K2K
What you are asking for is “The Perry Almanac.” It provides The S.C. CAMPAIGN TOUR SCHEDULE of the day, daily. The Perry Almanac is an informal newsletter focused on Rick Perry news you can use, written by Team Perry new media guy, Will Franklin. It links to another good site “The Rick Perry Report,” which has been providing daily updates with maps and local happenings. For the Almanac -
“P.S. If someone you know would like to sign up for this daily email, have them visit http://bit.ly/perryalmanac to sign up.” Both sources are very well done and quite informative.
Looks like Romney won’t be limping.
Awesome analysis – you managed to kind-of mention Ron Paul, but kept in line with the NYT and msm with your Huntsman emphasis.
Amazing – i thought the internet, and pjm, were new media…i guess that’s only in form.
i would not mind a strong showing/campaign by rick perry in the next few months
my recent support of santorum is merely the result of all the “experts” and political prognosticators who are so keen to write candidates off before votes are counted coupled with the fact that i refuse to support romney in the primary
if perry were to get some momentum then things could get interesting quick
As usual the out of state Ronulans are showing up to vote in the primaries of NH due to the loose and superficial voter ID requirements required. Some Stormfront Turkeys have already been spotted. I suspect Ron Paul will get blown out of the water in March and then hell start his third party campaign. As in the past he’ll end up with a single digit percentage because he won’t have enough worshipers to stuff the ballot boxes.
Bryan’s analysis is good, but you really have to scramble to figure that New Hampshire means much. Not criticizing Mr Preston, since covering this stuff is his job, but if Huntsman does 2% better than anticipated or Paul does 3% worse, it really isn’t going to be very meaningful.
If things go even close to expectations, NH will be a yawn. The only real significance will be if something really unexpected happens. If either Santorum gets over 25% or Gingrich gets under 5%, it will be meaningful. But something that startling isn’t likely, particularly when Romney has practically lived in NH for 5 years, and Huntsman for 6 months. Other than Ron Paul and the Paulbots, it will take a miracle for another candidate to do well, and even though a 2,3,4% movement by one of them would be screamed as earth-shattering from the rooftops, it won’t be.
South Carolina will be more meaningful because that state will probably decide who the conservative anti-Romney will be, or at least eliminate one of the three conservative candidates. If it doesn’t eliminate two of them, then it might be a long hard road to the nomination, because Santorum and Gingrich appear to be ready to slog it out unless they are soundly beaten.
Other than that, the most important thing about NH might be to see whether the firewall the Ruling Class has built around Romney will work. If it does, as expected, you have to discount it since NH is effectively the Pain Capitalist’s home state. But if the force shield is penetrated, it will be a new ballgame.
If Obama had been vetted in 2008 the One would never have stepped into the hallowed halls of the White House. The incompetent, subversive media owns much of the blame. He who would make the oceans recede has followed through on his promises. The disastrous result is America is turning into a bankrupt socialist haven. We the people emphatically object. It is time to put America and Americans on the path to recovery with a conservative at the helm, a conservative that has a provable record of success and I do no mean Washington DC.
It is imperative we do our own homework and vet the current GOP field sans the media biased rose colored glasses. Perry has experience and a DOCUMENTED record of success in the Texas economy. He is a leader who can and will guide our country back from the abyss. His history proves it. The liberal media has tried to sully his character and the only substantial accusation they could bring up is a supposedly racist rock. Humorous if it were not such a pathetic attempt.
It would be a great loss if the leftists succeed in eliminating Perry from these primaries. Don’t let them do it. They controlled the presidential election in 2007/8. How’s that working out for us?
We cannot afford another mistake.
So Perry is talking about Alamo in New Hampshire?
He’s a Johnny one note. He can only talk about Texas.
It’s weird, that he’s running such a clueless campaign. I thought he had hijacked famous and successful campaign managers from other candidates.
He is still my favorite candidate. But I have to reluctantly admit that he’s probably done.
He was done before it all began.
Just what exactly are “Texians”? I have lived in the Lone Star state all my life, and I have only met Texans. I am fairly sure we called ourselves Texans, all the way back to the founding of the Republic as well.
From the early history of Texas that I’ve read, and the emphasis I’ve always heard Texas schools put on Texas history, I’m surprised you don’t know this one.
“Texians” were citizens of the Republic of Texas. They first adopted the label before independence. “Texan” didn’t become current until statehood.
I spent a few days in Texas in 2002.
Can’t see Huntsman getting more than 3% of the vote, unless the DemocRat Operation Chaos voters all go for him.
Santorum will do well, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Ron Paul finishes 2nd.
My take is the leading economic indicators are flashing red, unemployment is going back up, the Euro Zone is going down, China’s currently taking a real estate dump, a wag the tail in Iran will only make the new June gloom recession worse, so any of the current crop of two faced lawyers running for president can beat Obama. Maybe a historian is in order for a change? Actually, the first modern president with a PHD was Wilson who helped with carving up the middle east with old Europe and created the UN predecessor, the League Of Nations, and that sure didn’t work out too well did it?
the drumbeats for that 12/2011 8.5% unemployment figure which had obama libs all giddy and starry-eyed forgot to mention there was a hiring spike of temp workers in warehouses, transportation and retail stores for the christmas buying surge from black friday thru 12/31/2011, that they will be laid off in january 2012. can’t wait for the higher unemployment levels for jan-fed 2012 figures to be released. predict a huge silence of the shams. obama is a loser.
Romney won, but he may only come out of it with 5 delegates out of 12. Ron Paul gets 3, and Huntsman 2. Gingrich and Santorum will each get 1, provided they get at least 10% of the vote, otherwise those delegates go to Romney.
Time for someone to pull Gingrich and Perry aside … and tell ‘em to go home quietly.