The primary season in the US presidential election campaign is supposed to slowly clear the field of presidential aspirants until a single candidate from each party remains standing. For the Republicans, this time around, the preliminary votes seem to be having the opposite effect.
On Tuesday night in New Hampshire, Senator John McCain of Arizona became the third Republican candidate to chalk up a victory in as many states, staging a comeback from a summer of collapse to take 37 percent of the vote. Mitt Romney, who won the little-noticed primary in Wyoming last week came in a disappointing second with 32 percent and Mike Huckabee, author of a meteoric rise to claim Iowa, limped into third place in New Hampshire with just 11 percent of the vote.
?My friends, you know I?m past the age when I can claim the noun ?kid,? no matter what adjective precedes it," McCain told his supporters on Tuesday night. "But tonight, we sure showed them what a comeback looks like.?
Comeback talk wasn't just limited to the Republican side on Tuesday. After a devastating third place finish in the Iowa caucus on Jan. 3, Senator Hillary Clinton managed a surprise victory over the Illinois senator and wunderkind Barack Obama. Clinton raked in 39 percent of the vote to Obama's 37 percent, despite pre-vote polls showing that Obama had a hefty lead. John Edwards, who eked out a second-place finish in Iowa, came in third with 17 percent of the vote, but said he would continue campaigning.
Many political commentators are ascribing Clinton's turnaround to her sudden display of emotion over the weekend after being asked how she was holding up under the rigors of the campaign. Exit polls showed that women voters, who abandoned her in Iowa, were solidly behind Clinton.
"Over the last week, I listened to you and, in the process, I found my own voice," Hillary told supporters gathered in Manchester, New Hampshire Tuesday night to celebrate her victory.
Clinton's victory, which came despite pre-primary polls showing that Obama had as much as a 10 percentage point lead going into Tuesday night, throws the Democratic race wide open. It also slows a wave of Obama support that was threatening to wash over the Hillary campaign. His campaign stops of late have often felt like pep rallies and, even in defeat on Tuesday night, he managed to get the crowd going.
"When we have faced down impossible odds, when we have been told we are not ready or that we shouldn't try or that we can't, generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people -- yes we can," Obama shouted, with the crowd echoing back his "yes we can" mantra.
After New Hampshire
He may, of course, still be right. The Clinton campaign was planning on taking Wednesday to regroup before hitting the stump again. Campaign officials told the Associated Press that she was considering conceding the next two primaries in Nevada and South Carolina to Obama. With a large number of African-American voters in South Carolina, Obama is thought to have a large advantage there.
But so far, no single candidate has emerged from the field with a clear claim to the nomination. McCain had spent months holding town meetings in New Hampshire after his campaign nearly fell apart last summer due to lack of funds. In 2000, McCain likewise won in New Hampshire before tanking in South Carolina after the George W. Bush campaign began suggesting that McCain had an illegitimate black child.
The Huckabee campaign, which did so well in Iowa, may have a hard time regaining steam after the New Hampshire setback, even though his campaign lowered expectations for the north-eastern state. A former evangelical preacher, Huckabee has strong support among the religious right in the US, meaning that he could do well with the Republican faithful in South Carolina. He is still doing well in national polls.
Romney, meanwhile, is focusing on Michigan, where he grew up. His father, likewise once a presidential candidate, was a popular governor there in the 1960s. The primary will be held next Tuesday, but McCain is likewise making a push with television ads and will be campaigning there on Wednesday.
Rudy Giuliani, meanwhile, remains the Republican wildcard. An early leader in national polls, the former mayor of New York elected to largely avoid both Iowa and New Hampshire, focusing instead on the Florida primary, which takes place just a few days before the Feb. 5 Super Tuesday extravaganza. He is hoping that a good showing in Florida might catapult him to victory a few days later.
For the Democrats, though, it now comes down to Obama versus Clinton. Clinton has been attempting to pierce the Obama balloon with a steady focus on the issues and by hammering health care, where Obama's plan seems to depart from the Democratic dream of mandatory health care for everyone. It could be that her steady focus may now, finally, be gaining traction.
"We went to hear both of them speak this weekend," Caroline Florom told the New York Times referring to family visits to campaign rallies held by both Clinton and Obama. "We stayed up until 3 a.m. last night listening to their speeches again on C-Span?. But in the end, she was the one bringing up the real issues about the middle class like college loans. His speeches felt like pep rallies"
cgh/ap/reuters
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