There are so many things to discuss now that we have the results from New Hampshire, but I’m exhausted and I’ll have to write about this all tomorrow for the Washington Monthly. One thing I’m not happy about is how many more people chose to vote in the Republican primary than the Democratic primary. I expect a party that’s been locked out of the White House to be more energized at this point in the campaign, but the difference is large and disturbing.
Obviously, Sanders absolutely crushed Clinton tonight, exceeding the expected margins in all but one poll that I noticed. He could hardly have done better and his performance in the first two contests has exceeded all reasonable expectations. As I’ve said all along, he absolutely needed to do this to have any chance. Well, he did it. Now he has a chance.
But, to be frank with you, he’s still behind the eight ball. If you include the superdelegates, who can of course change their commitments at any time, Clinton is now ahead with a 394-42 delegate lead. And the contest heads to Nevada and South Carolina where Clinton has so far held big leads with the Latino and black voters who were mostly absent in Iowa and New Hampshire. Even with his big win tonight, Sanders probably only picked up a small handful of net delegates. He has a long way to go to get close to knocking Clinton off.
Still, as I said, he has so far done exactly what he needed to do.
If you want to know why you read this blog, it’s because I told you forever ago that Kasich was going to be the guy, not Rubio, who would challenge Jeb Bush for Establishment support. I doubted myself for a while, but I shouldn’t have. Now I have been totally vindicated.
I also began telling you a while ago that Jeb wasn’t dead and that he had a chance to revitalize himself in New Hampshire. I don’t know if he’ll wind up in third, fourth, or fifth place tonight (with 82% of the vote counted, he’s tucked in fourth between Cruz and Rubio). I guess it doesn’t matter too much, but it would help him to finish ahead of Rubio in the top four, and it would be very helpful to finish third behind Kasich.
Ultimately, Kasich’s success comes at Jeb’s expense, and Jeb’s decent performance undermines Kasich’s ability to fully capitalize on his “victory” tonight. Only one of them can go forward for any distance, and Kasich needs to raise a ton of money very fast. With Rubio badly wounded, the Establishment could give Kasich the money he needs, but Jeb’s still lingering around and that’s a problem.
The primary schedule is also really tough for Kasich. He’d love to head right now to the Midwest or to have more primaries in the Northeast or Mid-Atlantic. But he’s gotta go compete in South Carolina where his brand of politics sells worse than cat shit.
This is all the more reason why he’ll need a lot of money, because he isn’t going to be winning anything anytime soon.
I don’t really have anything to say about Trump except that I never discounted his chances and I consistently told you that his many gaffes would not hurt him.
My heart was warmed to see that Jim Gilmore got more votes than Rick Santorum, and Ben Carson’s performance was spectacularly pathetic. I guess New Englanders don’t agree that the pyramids were made to store grain.
Carly Fiorina never lived up to the expectations of the executives at Fox News. Do you remember how hard they tried to sell her at the first debate?
Al Giordano told me the other day that Chris Christie was doomed because everyone who wants a NY/NJ tough guy was already on the Trump Train. I hadn’t thought about it that way, but he’s right. Also, Christie never should have closed down the George Washington Bridge. That was a fatal error and he’s gotten what he deserved for having done it.
I guess the Clintons will retool now. I hope they take some of my advice.
