Elections 2008: Weekly Scorecard (1/13)

This week saw the candidates participate in the New Hampshire primary on the heels of the Iowa caucus. New Hampshire’s election results stunned the pollsters and pundits, particularly on the Democratic side. The GOP candidates also had an uneventful debate on FOX, and all the candidates finished the week trying to re-direct their campaigns towards the next states, including South Carolina, Nevada, Michigan and Florida, and even some of the Super Tuesday states on February 5th. Having analyzed the New Hampshire results in detail earlier, this week’s summary will focus on putting the week in context as the campaigns move forward.

With that teaser, let’s see how they fared (in order of most likely to succeed):

THE REPUBLICANS

John McCain

McCain’s convincing victory put him back in the game, after his campaign was on life support for several months. A fair amount of his success, however, has to do with the unpopularity of the other GOP candidates, including Romney, and the personal affection for McCain among New Hampshire voters, who gave him a victory over Bush in 2000. Conventional wisdom would suggest this is a great outcome for the GOP because McCain’s popularity among independents and some Democrats would make him the strongest GOP nominee in the general election.

But who needs conventional wisdom? The GOP establishment is not ready to close ranks behind McCain for several reasons. First, many on the right distrust him for the same reasons independents like him: his departures from GOP orthodoxy on Bush’s tax cuts, campaign reform, illegal immigration and other matters. The GOP establishment candidates remain Romney and Giuliani. If Romney and Giuliani continue their poor performance, and it becomes a two-man race between McCain and Huckabee, the question will be whether the establishment will enthusiastically coalesce behind McCain as the lesser of two evils, given its distrust of Huckabee and his economic populism. But among rank and file GOP voters, don’t be surprised to see McCain become the leader, given the downturn in fortunes for Romney and Giuliani and McCain’s broader appeal than Huckabee’s.

The road from New Hampshire is hardly a cakewalk for McCain, as the action moves to South Carolina, Michigan and Florida. South Carolina derailed his campaign in 2000 and a victory there would give him a chance to exorcise those demons. But he faces stiff challenge from Huckabee in light of its evangelical population that exceeds Iowa’s. Huckabee is also leading in Florida in most polls, and Romney is the favorite son in Michigan.Since New Hampshire, McCain’s victory seems to played second fiddle to the shocking victory by Hillary over Obama in the MSM. Under other circumstances, his victory would have been a huge comeback story that would have put him on the front page of every major newspaper and newsmagazine, but Hillary’s upset victory stole the show. This may depress the bounce effect of his victory in the upcoming states. We will find out soon enough.

Grade: A-

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Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee was wise to downplay expectations in New Hampshire given his distant third place finish. This performance in New Hampshire slowed his momentum coming out of Iowa. But beating Giuliani, Thompson and Ron Paul is nothing to be ashamed of for someone who spent hardly any time or money in New Hampshire.

Huckabee has a solid chance to win in both South Carolina and Florida. Even in Michigan, where Romney enjoys favorite son status, Huckabee will be able to draw upon the same evangelical voters that boosted Pat Robertson in Michigan years ago. If Huckabee runs the table and keeps Romney and Giuliani in the winless column after these primaries, then he’d enter Super Tuesday on February 5th in essentially a two-man race with McCain.

The challenge for Huckabee will be expanding his base of support beyond his evangelical base to the other factions of the Reagan coalition: fiscal conservatives and foreign policy neoconservatives. Huckabee is a very effective communicator who has a knack for disarming his opponents with a likeable, folksy manner. He should not be underestimated.

Grade: B-

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Mitt Romney

Mitt is in big trouble. It wasn’t long ago when it looked like Romney had New Hampshire in the bag. He had all the advantages — money, organization and familiarity among voters. Actually, maybe that last one wasn’t an advantage. Romney was hammered by New Hampshire newspapers as a phony, and apparently many agreed with them. Most voters in New Hampshire remembered him as a socially moderate governor in next door Massachusetts. Yet in the days before the New Hampshire primary, he attacked McCain and Huckabee from the right on immigration, foreign policy and taxes. He also defended the Bush administration from Huckabee’s criticism of its “arrogant bunker mentality.” Yet Romney tried to have it both ways by defending the status quo while claiming the mantle of change. Romney contended that voters don’t want change in the White House, but simply change in the more ambiguous “Washington,” whatever that means. But the voters saw through this act and handed victory to McCain.

Romney’s game plan was to begin the campaign with two early victories in Iowa and New Hampshire and to ride that momentum to success on Super Tuesday. Now he’s pulled out of South Carolina, Florida to fight for his life in his birthplace of Michigan, where his father was governor. Even if he wins Michigan, it looks like he’s done.

Grade: D

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Rudy Giuliani

The only excitement for Giuliani on election night on Tuesday was his sad battle for fourth place with loony Ron Paul, which he ultimately won by a hair. He tried to spin his second straight poor performance as good news. But if it was all a part of his plan, then why did he burn through millions of dollars in New Hampshire? By Friday, his campaign confirmed that they had stopped paying its top campaign staffers to conserve cash. I wonder if they took the job knowing that Giuliani’s failure to meet payroll was always a part of his master plan.

By Saturday, McCain had tied Giuliani in the polls in his home state of New York. If Giuliani fails to win Florida, which looks increasingly likely, it will spell defeat for his campaign strategy and his donors will abandon him, leaving him on life support at best as he heads into Super Tuesday on February 5th. Ironically, the candidate who based his whole campaign strategy on taking blue states in the Northeast from the Democrats may drop out before primary voters in those states get a chance to vote.

Grade: D-

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THE DEMOCRATS

Hillary Clinton

It has been all Hillary all the time since her upset victory in New Hampshire. In her appearance on Meet the Press on Sunday, she was forceful and persuasive. She’s trying to navigate the line of painting Obama as an empty suit without going too negative and alienating Obama’s supporters (with mixed success). She pointed out that since his 2002 speech opposing war in Iraq, he backed off from that position afterwards and voted to fund the war several times, as she did herself. She also accused the Obama campaign of deliberately distorting her comments and those of Bill Clinton. Indeed, Bill Clinton’s remark about “a fairy tale” seems to be deliberately distorted by Hillary’s opponents into an unfair attack on Obama’s general viability as a candidate. From my own view of the video, Bill Clinton’s full remarks that ended with that comment were narrowly focused on Obama’s position on Iraq. She also tried to put in context her remark about MLK and LBJ. But each minute she spends explaining her remark keeps in the news a story her campaign wishes would go away.

The challenge Hillary faces is changing the dynamic of her candidacy from the establishment candidate representing the past, fighting off a visionary, youthful and historic candidate of change in Obama. By breaking through with women voters in New Hampshire, she in fact achieved an historic first by becoming the first woman to win a presidential primary. With the victory, she may have succeeded in making this shift in perception where she is a candidate of change. At the same time, the rise of Obama has given those Democratic voters who have always disliked Hillary a viable alternative. This alone should reduce her lead in national polls.

Following her near-cry moment demonstrated, it seems she now understands the importance of letting down her guard a bit and revealing the side of her she typically keeps private. She spent time in Nevada walking door to door and meeting with voters in living rooms (with a press entourage following closely that must have looked like the Verizon Wireless network folks). Meanwhile, she continues to pound home the experience/tested narrative to distinguish herself from Obama, even as she presents herself as the change candidate.

With the advantage she should have with super delegates, success on Super Tuesday may put this race away. She will necessarily win in Michigan as the only major Democratic candidate on the ballot, thanks to a dispute between the state and the DNC. She also should do reasonably well in Nevada, even with Obama’s endorsements by major Nevada unions. In addition, most of the remaining primaries are closed to non-registered Democrats, which should help her and hurt Obama. It will be a long campaign, but Hillary may have already passed her toughest test.

Grade: A-

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Obama

Obama looked shocked after his campaign loss in New Hampshire. His speech, with his new slogan “yes we can” sounded oddly dissonant with a moment of concession (i.e., “no we didn’t”). It seemed like he had hastily revised a victory speech.

In the days that have followed New Hampshire, Obama has been playing an insiders game of gathering endorsements from unions and politicians. Many of them are impressive, and while endorsements are often of limited value, they may help inoculate Obama on the inexperience issue. The number of endorsements from fellow senators, however, may have more to do with Hillary and Edwards than Obama. Clearly, there’s no love lost between Kerry and Edwards, so Kerry’s endorsement is not a great shock. Kerry’s endorsement also carries with it his valuable email list of donors, and perhaps even some of those millions of dollars left over from the 2004 campaign. And apparently Senators McCaskill, Johnson and Nelson have enjoyed the last few years with Obama more than the last 8 years with Hillary.

Unlike Hillary, who has worked aggressively in the last week to address her perceived likeability issue by being more visibly open with voters, Obama has done little to address last week’s self-inflicted damage. In the New Hampshire debate, Obama made the remark, “You’re likeable enough, Hillary” that apparently was viewed negatively by New Hampshire voters. Because he remains largely unknown to most voters, unless he quickly finds some way to dispel this impression, it may cause lasting damage to his image. He needed a full hour on Meet the Press today more than Hillary did.

Obama is expected to win South Carolina. In addition, with the endorsements of powerful unions in Nevada, he is expected to do well. He’s going to need to win both Nevada and South Carolina to come into Super Tuesday with a wave of momentum sufficient to counter’s Hillary’s superior organization nationally. My guess is he will win South Carolina but lose Nevada, which will weaken him going into Super Tuesday.

Grade: B-

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John Edwards

Edwards’s aggressiveness in the New Hampshire debate backfired with women voters, who abandoned him for Hillary. Edwards distant third place finish, following his loss in Iowa, has decimated his campaign. The only reason for him to remain in the race is if Obama or Hillary collapse, he would be the only alternative, or to act as a kingmaker of sorts if Hillary or Obama needs him in the delegate race. The problem with this theory is his performance in Iowa and New Hampshire isn’t worthy of either role and he hasn’t passed the credibility threshold yet.

Edwards’s problem with voters is more fundamental. He was likeable in 2004 with a message of hope and optimism. Obama now owns that positive message and Edwards has adopted a much more aggressive and angry tone that frankly seems misplaced coming from him. In addition, both Hillary and Obama seem to have successfully co-opted key elements of his economic message.

Grade: D