New Hampshire Results Stir Polling Controversy

Why were the polls so miserably wrong on Tuesday's Democratic New Hampshire results, after Barack Obama held a double-digit lead on the eve of vote? Gary Langer at ABC News is on the big question of the morning:

There will be a serious, critical look at the final pre-election polls in the Democratic presidential primary in New Hampshire; that is essential. It is simply unprecedented for so many polls to have been so wrong. We need to know why.

But we need to know it through careful, empirically based analysis. There will be a lot of claims about what happened - about respondents who reputedly lied, about alleged difficulties polling in biracial contests. That may be so. It also may be a smokescreen - a convenient foil for pollsters who'd rather fault their respondents than own up to other possibilities - such as their own failings in sampling and likely voter modeling.

There have been previous races that misstated support for black candidates in biracial races. But most of those were long ago, and there have been plenty of polls in biracial races that were accurate. (For more on past problems with polls in biracial races, see this blog I wrote for Freakonomics last May.) And there was no overstatement of Obama in Iowa polls.

On the other hand, the pre-election polls in the New Hampshire Republican race were accurate. The problem was isolated to the Democratic side - where, it should be noted, we have not just one groundbreaking candidate in Barack Obama, but also another, in Hillary Clinton.

Langer's main hypothesis - assuming confidence in the poll findings - is that Clinton's voter turnout efforts were decisive, and perhaps the undecideds switched over to Hillary's banner at the last minute.

The Washington Post provides a deeper analysis:

There will be a serious, critical look at the final pre-election polls in the Democratic presidential primary in New Hampshire; that is essential. It is simply unprecedented for so many polls to have been so wrong. We need to know why.

But we need to know it through careful, empirically based analysis. There will be a lot of claims about what happened - about respondents who reputedly lied, about alleged difficulties polling in biracial contests. That may be so. It also may be a smokescreen - a convenient foil for pollsters who'd rather fault their respondents than own up to other possibilities - such as their own failings in sampling and likely voter modeling.

There have been previous races that misstated support for black candidates in biracial races. But most of those were long ago, and there have been plenty of polls in biracial races that were accurate. (For more on past problems with polls in biracial races, see this blog I wrote for Freakonomics last May.) And there was no overstatement of Obama in Iowa polls.

On the other hand, the pre-election polls in the New Hampshire Republican race were accurate. The problem was isolated to the Democratic side - where, it should be noted, we have not just one groundbreaking candidate in Barack Obama, but also another, in Hillary Clinton.

Here's more, on the racial angle and other possible factors:

Yesterday's result is sure to fuel debate among poll-watchers about the accuracy of polls in contests with African American candidates. In several well-known past examples, pre-election polls of such campaigns underestimated support for the white candidates. But a strong showing by polls in 2006 in elections with black candidates seemed to put that notion finally to rest.

Other factors that are more probable than the role of race include "likely voter" modeling, with pollsters perhaps over-counting the boost of enthusiasm among Obama supporters following his victory in Iowa last Thursday.

Independents may have opted at the last minute to participate in the Republican primary, depriving Obama of voters.

The New Hampshire ballot rules may also have played a role. In previous contests, the state rotated candidate names from precinct to precinct, but this year the names were consistently in alphabetical order, with Clinton near the top and Obama lower down. Stanford professor Jon A. Krosnick, a survey specialist, has estimated the impact of appearing high on the New Hampshire ballot at three percentage points or greater. Regardless, there were no immediate clear answers, and lots of data analysis ahead.

There's going to be more talk, throughout the campaign, of the racial vote.

But given the intensity of Obama's support in Iowa, there's little reason to support the hypothesis of a significant racial backlash in Tuesday's vote. More likely, the youth turnout in Iowa flowed to the Obama camp, but in New Hampshire older voters cast their ballots along more moderate to traditional lines.

Both Langer and the Washington Post mention Krosnik's "ballot order hypothesis," which sounds valid, as we know from 2000's "butterfly ballot"controversy that name-order and ballot-card design can have a large effect on the vote (although suggesting an Obama victory under rotating ballots requires deeping substantiation).

Clinton almost certainly benefitted from an "empathy vote," a surge of last-minute deciders influenced by Hillary's teary mini-meltdown, which flooded the media on Monday and Tuesday.

The Times of London looks at the data on "the crying game":

A rare moment of public emotion in a New Hampshire coffee shop was credited today with helping to bring Hillary Clinton back from the political dead and handing her victory in yesterday's crucial presidential primary.

Analysis of exit polls from New Hampshire showed that women voters, traditionally her most loyal supporters, flooded back after deserting her for Barack Obama in last week's Iowa caucuses. Mr Obama narrowly edged Mrs Clinton for the female vote in Iowa primary last week but yesterday she enjoyed a clear 13-point lead.

The psephologists will be poring over the New Hampshire results for some time to work out how the pollsters got it quite so wrong, but already it appears that a much-broadcast episode in which she welled up while talking to supporters in a Portsmouth restaurant could have earned Mrs Clinton a priceless sympathy vote in the state.

This is the "reverse Muskie effect," a reference to the 1972 campaign of Senator Edmund Muskie, which collapsed after he allegedly shed some tears in an emotional speech outside the headquarters of the Manchester-Union Leader.

But see Maureen Dowd's take over at the New York Times (via Memeorandum): "Certainly it was impressive that she could choke up and stay on message."

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UPDATE: Frank Newport, of the Gallup Organization, has an analysis of the New Hampshire polling fiasco, over at USA Today:

My best hypothesis is that Democratic voters in New Hampshire didn't cooperate with pollsters by maintaining their weekend voting intentions, but instead continued to evaluate candidates and to take new information into account right up until the time they went into the voting booth – and that a number in fact changed their minds about their vote at the last minute.

Newport's frankly blown away that voters changed their minds!

That's strange, coming from a polling expert of Newport's caliber - who's part of the Gallup organization no less - since one of the longest standing lessons of public opinion is that polls can miss late shifts in voter preferences. The key example: Gallup's own disastrous call of Thomas Dewey over President Harry Truman in the 1948 election:

I think Newport's right, though. Voters weren't exactly sure about their preferences when they spoke to pollsters over the weekend of January 4-6. Late-breaking events changed minds. That's actually to be expected from time to time, although a little humility is good in politics and public opinion.

The Comeback Queen and the American Democracy

Sometimes you just have to be amazed by politics. No matter what you think of her, for the moment, give it up for Hillary Rodham Clinton!

Here's the New York Times story on the New Hampshire results:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton won the New Hampshire Democratic primary in a surprising show of strength after losing the Iowa caucuses to Senator Barack Obama last week. Senator John McCain prevailed meanwhile on the Republican side, breathing life into a campaign that had been given up for dead just months ago and scrambling a race that now has no clear front-runner.

“Now it’s a one-on-one race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama,” said Terry McAuliffe, Mrs. Clinton campaign manager. He said that Mr. Obama came out of Iowa with momentum but Mrs. Clinton turned it around with her debate performance Saturday night and what he called a humanizing moment on the campaign trail on Monday.

Mr. Obama conceded the race to Mrs. Clinton, congratulating her on a “hard-fought victory.”

He told cheering supporters in Manchester: “You made it clear in this moment and this election there is something happening in America. We are ready to take this country in a fundamentally new direction.”

I'm retiring for the night. I'll have lots to say in the weeks and months ahead, although I can say now that for all of the country's worries, our democracy's as vital as ever.

New Hampshire, if it was ever important as a first-in-the-nation primary, has burnished its reputation forever by tonight's results. Both Hillary Clinton and John McCain stunned the political establishment with victories at odds with consensus opinion and recent polling trends.

There will be bitter battles ahead, not to mention blood, sweat, and tears. But for now, sleep well knowing the Americans settle their differences at the ballot box. We will have a vigorous contest through February 5, a day when many of the states of the nation who have long felt shut out of the nomination process will have their say.

Critics who dismiss Iowa and New Hampshire have to ask themselves: What if it was me? What would I do, would I want to change the system? We can go to a regional primary, but after this year's results, even democratic pessimists have to concede that the dynamics of election 2008 energized a nation. This is what it's all about! The drama, the highs and lows, the agony and the ecstasy. You've got to love it!

Tune in back here tomorrow for more analysis.

As regular readers know, I'm extremely pleased with John McCain's comeback. I've felt like it was Christmas Eve all day, waiting for bedtime and then opening my "presents" the next day - in this case, the big gift of a McCain triumph! Merry Christmas in January!

But as McCain said, "tomorrow, we begin again." Thank goodness.

John McCain Wins New Hampshire Primary!

CNN has called the New Hampshire Republican primary for John McCain:

Sen. John McCain will win the New Hampshire GOP primary, CNN projects....

With 9 percent of Republican precincts reporting, McCain had 37 percent of the vote. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was second with 28 percent, and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, the winner of last week's Iowa GOP caucuses followed with 12 percent.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani had 9 percent and Texas Rep. Ron Paul had 8 percent.

Voters turned out in higher-than-expected numbers Tuesday, with a sizable chunk making decisions on who to support at the last minute, according to early exit polls.

Eighteen percent of Republicans and 15 percent of Democrats said they picked their candidate on Election Day.

But the fate of the candidates could rest in the hands of New Hampshire independent voters, who make up about 40 percent of the electorate. A CNN-WMUR poll Sunday found independent voters split almost evenly between the parties this year.

The state's governor predicted a record turnout for the first-in-the-nation presidential primary as candidates zigzagged across the New England state trying to influence undecided voters.

Gov. John Lynch said he expects half a million people to vote.

The governor's prediction followed record-breaking numbers in last week's Iowa Democratic and Republican caucuses.

See also the New York Times, "McCain Leads Romney in Early Returns."

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UPDATE: The New York Times has the report on the McCain win.

The caption to the photo below reads, "John and Cindy McCain after television networks called the Republican primary in Mr. McCain's favor."

I'll post the text of McCain's victory speech when I find it, but I loved his conclusion: "Tomorrow, we being again!"

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UPDATE: Here's the text of McCain's victory speech in New Hampshire:

...I learned long ago that serving only oneself is a petty and unsatisfying ambition. But serve a cause greater than self-interest and you will know a happiness far more sublime than the fleeting pleasure of fame and fortune. For me that greater cause has always been my country, which I have served imperfectly for many years, but have loved without any reservation every day of my life. And however this campaign turns out - and I am more confident tonight that it will turn out much better than once expected - I am grateful beyond expression for the prospect that I might serve her a little while longer. That gratitude imposes on me the responsibility to do nothing in this campaign that would make our country's problems harder to solve or that would cause Americans to despair that a candidate for the highest office in the land would think so little of the honor that he would put his own interests before theirs. I take that responsibility as my most solemn trust...

Ron Paul: The Angry White Man

James Kirchick has created a rumble across the blogosphere with his Ron Paul expose over at the New Republic:

If you are a critic of the Bush administration, chances are that, at some point over the past six months, Ron Paul has said something that appealed to you. Paul describes himself as a libertarian, but, since his presidential campaign took off earlier this year, the Republican congressman has attracted donations and plaudits from across the ideological spectrum. Antiwar conservatives, disaffected centrists, even young liberal activists have all flocked to Paul, hailing him as a throwback to an earlier age, when politicians were less mealy-mouthed and American government was more modest in its ambitions, both at home and abroad. In The New York Times Magazine, conservative writer Christopher Caldwell gushed that Paul is a "formidable stander on constitutional principle," while The Nation praised "his full-throated rejection of the imperial project in Iraq." Former TNR editor Andrew Sullivan endorsed Paul for the GOP nomination, and ABC's Jake Tapper described the candidate as "the one true straight-talker in this race." Even The Wall Street Journal, the newspaper of the elite bankers whom Paul detests, recently advised other Republican presidential contenders not to "dismiss the passion he's tapped."

Most voters had never heard of Paul before he launched his quixotic bid for the Republican nomination. But the Texan has been active in politics for decades. And, long before he was the darling of antiwar activists on the left and right, Paul was in the newsletter business. In the age before blogs, newsletters occupied a prominent place in right-wing political discourse. With the pages of mainstream political magazines typically off-limits to their views (National Review editor William F. Buckley having famously denounced the John Birch Society), hardline conservatives resorted to putting out their own, less glossy publications. These were often paranoid and rambling--dominated by talk of international banking conspiracies, the Trilateral Commission's plans for world government, and warnings about coming Armageddon--but some of them had wide and devoted audiences. And a few of the most prominent bore the name of Ron Paul.

Paul's newsletters have carried different titles over the years--Ron Paul's Freedom Report, Ron Paul Political Report, The Ron Paul Survival Report--but they generally seem to have been published on a monthly basis since at least 1978. (Paul, an OB-GYN and former U.S. Air Force surgeon, was first elected to Congress in 1976.) During some periods, the newsletters were published by the Foundation for Rational Economics and Education, a nonprofit Paul founded in 1976; at other times, they were published by Ron Paul & Associates, a now-defunct entity in which Paul owned a minority stake, according to his campaign spokesman. The Freedom Report claimed to have over 100,000 readers in 1984. At one point, Ron Paul & Associates also put out a monthly publication called The Ron Paul Investment Letter.

The Freedom Report's online archives only go back to 1999, but I was curious to see older editions of Paul's newsletters, in part because of a controversy dating to 1996, when Charles "Lefty" Morris, a Democrat running against Paul for a House seat, released excerpts stating that "opinion polls consistently show only about 5% of blacks have sensible political opinions," that "if you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be," and that black representative Barbara Jordan is "the archetypical half-educated victimologist" whose "race and sex protect her from criticism." At the time, Paul's campaign said that Morris had quoted the newsletter out of context. Later, in 2001, Paul would claim that someone else had written the controversial passages. (Few of the newsletters contain actual bylines.) Caldwell, writing in the Times Magazine last year, said he found Paul's explanation believable, "since the style diverges widely from his own."

Finding the pre-1999 newsletters was no easy task, but I was able to track many of them down at the libraries of the University of Kansas and the Wisconsin Historical Society. Of course, with few bylines, it is difficult to know whether any particular article was written by Paul himself. Some of the earlier newsletters are signed by him, though the vast majority of the editions I saw contain no bylines at all. Complicating matters, many of the unbylined newsletters were written in the first person, implying that Paul was the author.

But, whoever actually wrote them, the newsletters I saw all had one thing in common: They were published under a banner containing Paul's name, and the articles (except for one special edition of a newsletter that contained the byline of another writer) seem designed to create the impression that they were written by him--and reflected his views. What they reveal are decades worth of obsession with conspiracies, sympathy for the right-wing militia movement, and deeply held bigotry against blacks, Jews, and gays. In short, they suggest that Ron Paul is not the plain-speaking antiwar activist his supporters believe they are backing--but rather a member in good standing of some of the oldest and ugliest traditions in American politics.

Read the rest.

The blogosphere reaction can be found at Memeorandum.

I've blogged much about Paul. See my posts, for example, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. My favorite entry is my most recent, covering Paul's recent Meet the Press appearance, where the Texas congressman demonstrated his total hypocrisy on earmarks and federal spending.

I vehemently disagree with Paul's policy advocacy, especially his disastrous cut-and-run position on Iraq. What's especially interesting about Paul, though, is his appeal to fringe elements of both the left and right, including neo-Nazis.

The constroversy over the Paul campaign's refusal to return campaign contributions from extremist groups continues to dog Paul's paleoconservative reputation.

See the blog reaction, including Paul's own rebuttal, at Memeorandum.

Hillary Clinton Bracing for Another Loss

Political developments have been breathtaking since Iowa, especially on the Democratic side, where Hillary Clinton - once considered a virtually unbeatable frontrunner even among political professionals - is bracing for a loss in New Hampshire.

Jackie Calmes over at the Wall Street Journal has a penetrating analysis of the Clinton campaign's plight. Things aren't looking good, and I'm trying not to jump on the "Hillary's done" bandwagon:

With Barack Obama strongly favored - even within Hillary Clinton's camp - to win a second straight victory in today's New Hampshire Democratic primary, both rivals are looking to the next battle grounds. But his momentum threatens to swamp her in the next two states as well and shows signs of fracturing her support in the party establishment.

Already some Clinton associates have begun lobbying for her early exit if she loses the primary by a big margin, as polls suggest she could. Several Senate colleagues who have sat on the fence are now in talks with Obama advisers about endorsing the freshman Illinois senator over his more experienced colleague.

Despite raising more than $100 million, Sen. Clinton also faces financial worries as contributions have begun to slacken. But she vows to fight on: Her campaign will pivot to focus more heavily on "Super Tuesday" Feb. 5, when 21 states vote. "We are going all the way to the convention," Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said.

Still, the maneuverings marked an extraordinary turn, and underscored the power of small, early-voting states to scramble all bets - especially in a year when the states' contests are so closely scheduled. Sen. Clinton until now continued to hold wide leads in national polls; a new Gallup poll has her slipping into a dead heat. Her original campaign strategy, aimed at positioning her as the inevitable nominee who would capture the early states and wrap up the nomination before February, is now in shambles.

Sen. Clinton uncharacteristically bared the strain of her plight and the grueling campaign pace yesterday: She momentarily choked up with tear-filled eyes after a woman at a Portsmouth, N.H., cafe inquired as to how she gets ready for the campaign each day. "I have so many ideas for this country, and I just don't want to see us fall backwards as a nation," she said, her voice cracking. "This is very personal for me."

Things could be getting worse.

The Culinary Workers union in Nevada - said to be a crucial interest group consitituency for the Democrats - will likely endorse Barack Obama tomorrow after his likely New Hampshire win today. Plus, Clinton's campaign is running out of money - or at least the organization might not have the resources to spend heavily in California and New York, two of the key states in which Clinton's forces hope to stage a comeback.

(Karen Tumulty over at Time examines Hillary's money troubles, with the campaign having "as little as $15 million to $25 million left on hand.")

Calmes in the WSJ piece indicates that internal strife has racked Clinton's top-level staffers, with controversy centered on senior strategist Mark Penn's underestimation of the electorate's demand for change, as well as the significance of the Obama bounce coming out of Iowa.

Should Hillary plug the plug tomorrow, after a loss tonight, and then back Obama, as some party insiders are hoping? I noted earlier that it's too early for Clinton to concede:

I just don't think Obama's got it locked up yet, even with a win today. Sure, history and the odds are in favor of an Iowa/New Hampshire double-winner, but we've still got essentially a national primary on February 5, and the Clinton machine is well-organized (with James Carville waiting in the wings), backed by Bill Clinton's star power (which will have more bite in "left-coast" type of states), and Hillary's not yet gotten down-and-dirty with political attacks on Obama (who might not be here if it wasn't for Jeri Ryan!).

Maybe that's a bit conservative.

Note though that today's Washington Post stresses how the early nominating contests in Iowa and New Hampshire have exceeded expectations as turning points on the way to the nomination.

The 2008 election season is the most frontloaded in history. The Iowa/New Hampshire contests come just five days apart, and analysts for the first time might likely be right to consider the pair the functional equivalent of a one-two nominating coronation!

Maybe Hillary really is done! More updates later!

Hillary Clinton's Stress

What was it about Hillary Clinton's teary episode yesterday: A genuine burst of spontaneous emotion by an embattled erstwhile frontrunner, or a cold, calculated effort to pull on America's heartstrings for political purposes?

Hard to say. Maybe a little of both.

But whatever the case, Hillary's crying bout showed how disastrously her fortunes have fallen in the Democratic presidential race. The New York Times provides an analysis:

Key campaign officials may be replaced. She may start calling herself the underdog. Donors would receive pleas that it is do-or-die time. And her political strategy could begin mirroring that of Rudolph W. Giuliani, a Republican rival, by focusing on populous states like California and New York whose primaries are Feb. 5.

Everything is on the table inside Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign if she loses the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, her advisers say — including her style of campaigning, which shifted dramatically on Monday when Mrs. Clinton bared her thoughts about the race’s impact on her personally, and her eyes welled with tears.

“I couldn’t do it if I just didn’t passionately believe it was the right thing to do,” she said here in reply to a question from an undecided voter, a woman roughly Mrs. Clinton’s age.

Her eyes visibly wet, in perhaps the most public display of emotion of her year-old campaign, Mrs. Clinton added: “I have so many opportunities from this country, I just don’t want to see us fall backwards. This is very personal for me — it’s not just political, it’s not just public.”

Mrs. Clinton did not cry, but her quavering voice and the flash of feeling underscored the pressure, fatigue, anger and disappointment that, advisers say, Mrs. Clinton has experienced since her loss on Thursday in the Iowa caucuses and that she continues to shoulder at this most critical moment.

Mrs. Clinton has felt frustrated and at times rejected as she has watched the rise of Senator Barack Obama, her main rival here and the victor in Iowa, advisers say.

But she is also worried that her political strategy, polling and communications message have not reflected the mood and desire for change among Democratic voters.

In an interview on Monday night, Mrs. Clinton said she choked up at the Portsmouth event because the other woman had expressed concern for her feelings, after months when Mrs. Clinton was focused on voters’ anxieties.

“It was just so touching when this woman said, ‘Well, what about you?’” Mrs. Clinton said. “I just don’t think about that, I think about what I can do for other people I have spent a lifetime trying to help others; I’m very other-directed. That’s maybe why people don’t get me in the political world.”

The article goes on to note that Hillary's not throwing in the towel. The campaign plans a big ad push, and will step up the focus in California and New York.

I've been careful in my assessment here at American Power. I just don't think Obama's got it locked up yet, even with a win today. Sure, history and the odds are in favor of an Iowa/New Hampshire double-winner, but we've still got essentially a national primary on February 5, and the Clinton machine is well-organized (with James Carville waiting in the wings), backed by Bill Clinton's star power (which will have more bite in "left-coast" type of states), and Hillary's not yet gotten down-and-dirty with political attacks on Obama (who might not be here if it wasn't for Jeri Ryan!).

Having noted this, I got a kick out of Big Dog's analysis of Clinton's difficulties:

If we are lucky, by this time tomorrow Hillary Clinton's campaign will be gasping for its last breaths of air and it dies a long overdue death. I realize that even if she loses New Hampshire she could go on but there are indications that many of her supporters have secretly said she is not going much further and there are also indications that she is or will soon be strapped for cash. What once seemed a juggernaut of political and money raising efficiency is now heading down to the bottom very rapidly.

Hillary was out giving a please vote for me speech today when someone asked her how she does it. Hillary got tears in her eyes and her voiced cracked a few times during her answer which largely consisted of her her desire to make the country better and her beliefs blah, blah. The truth is Hillary expected to be the next president. She has been planning her chance for years and her pact with Bill looked like manifest destiny when she was way ahead in the polls and raising millions upon millions of dollars. She started out asking people to max out by giving the largest amount possible for both the primary and the general election. Now she is just asking for the amount needed to continue in the primary.

Hillary Clinton spent a fortune in Iowa and has a third place show for it. She has blown millions of dollars to convince people to vote for her and it is not working. She has brought out the big guns in her husband and while he is exciting many people it is because of their cult like worship of him and his decadent ways and not so much for her. They seem not to like her very much and I don't really blame them. Hillary was all set to be the next president and now it looks like she might bow out. This is why she is crying though some might think she is trying to show she is actually a caring human. In reality, she can hear her dreams shattering and that shatter sounds like Senator Obama.

Dan Joseph over at Falling Panda 's got a nice dissection as well:

Hillary Clinton is not completely responsible for what is shaping up to be her meteoric fall from her status as the Democratic front-runner. In fact it's really not her fault at all. There's probably nothing she can do about it, which I would imagine is a very discouraging position for an uber-ambitious individual, such as Mrs. Clinton, to be in. She's crying at her rallies. Not a good sign.

Mr. Obama is running solely on his charisma. This completely undefined concept of "hope" and his incredible speaking skills have catapulted him ahead of Clinton in every early primary state. That's all! There's nothing else to it.

By contrast, Mrs. Clinton has no charisma, and her presentation style ranges from phony to shrill with very few points in between. However, to give this charisma dividend all of the credit for Clinton's troubles would be a vast oversimplification, even when handicapping a Democratic party which frequently favors style over substance. Especially younger members of the party.

Joseph goes on to provide a nice counterfactual analysis of Barack Obama (lack of) experience.

Photo Credit: New York Times

Check Memeorandum for more information.

Gallup's New Hampshire Republican Vote Breakdown

The Gallup Poll has an interesting breakdown of the New Hampshire primary vote. Here's the take on the Republican side:

* McCain is the top choice among Republican men in New Hampshire; his lead is nine points over second-place Mitt Romney. McCain and Romney tie among women, each with 32% of the vote.

* Younger Republican voters (under age 50) are about equally likely to say they would vote for McCain as for Romney, but among older Republican voters (aged 50 and older), McCain has a significant lead, with Romney in second.

* McCain and Romney are roughly tied among Republican voters without college degrees. McCain leads other Republican candidates among college graduates and those with postgraduate educations.

* If McCain manages to win New Hampshire, it will be because of the independent voter. Among registered Republicans, McCain (32%) and Romney (31%) are evenly matched. But McCain has a clear advantage among independents, with 40% of these "undeclared" voters saying they would vote for him, compared with 25% for Romney.

* Mike Huckabee, the former Baptist minister, fares best among New Hampshire Republican voters who attend church every week, but still trails McCain and Romney among this group. McCain's support is slightly higher among those who rarely or never go to church, as is the case for Ron Paul and Rudy Giuliani.

* The majority of Republican voters who say illegal immigration is their top vote issue this year (55%) say they plan to vote for Romney. McCain bests Romney and the other leading Republicans on terrorism and the economy.

* Voters who say the candidates' leadership skills are more important to their vote for president choose McCain as their preferred candidate, while those who say the candidates' issue stances are more important are more likely to pick Romney over any other candidate.

Survey Methods

The results for Republicans in this report are based on interviews conducted Jan. 4-6, 2008, with 776 New Hampshire residents deemed most likely to vote in the Republican primary. For this sample, the maximum margin of error attributable to sampling is ±4 percentage points.

The likely voter model assumes a turnout rate of 60% of those who say they plan to vote in the Republican presidential primary, approximately 25% of New Hampshire adults. The likely voter results are weighted to match this assumption (weighted sample size is 732).

All results reported here are based on likely voters.

The results for Democrats in this report are based on interviews conducted Jan. 4-6, 2008, with 778 New Hampshire residents deemed most likely to vote in the Democratic primary. For this sample, the maximum margin of error attributable to sampling is ±4 percentage points.

The likely voter model assumes a turnout rate of 60% of those who say they plan to vote in the Democratic presidential primary, approximately 25% of New Hampshire adults. The likely voter results are weighted to match this assumption (weighted sample size is 722).

All results reported here are based on likely voters.

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

Looking at the numbers one sees McCain vulnerable only on immigration, quite vulnerable, as a majority of 55 percent see immigration as their top issue. As the discussion above suggests, the Arizona Senator takes 4 out of 10 independent voters, who are considered key to a McCain victory.

McCain might be hoping for a bit of a nostalgia vote as well, a "those-were-the-days" vote, harking back to 2000. A bit of luck's going to help as well.

USA Today's discussion of the survey is here.

John McCain is Back!

John McCain's has comeback in New Hampshire, although Saturday's debate performance leaves a little room for doubt, according to Ron Claiborne from ABC News:

These are suddenly very good times for John McCain.

A WMUR poll taken over the weekend put him six percentage points up on former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in New Hampshire. He is drawing large, enthusiastic crowds at almost every campaign stop.

And that was before the ABC News/Facebook debate where Romney appeared to be rattled by a barrage of attacks from McCain and his other opponents. That was before the storyline of Sunday's coverage of the Republicans became Romney's denial in the debate that he was running television ads saying McCain favored "amnesty" for illegal immigrants when, in fact, he has two such ads.

McCain had been cautious about saying how he will do in the New Hampshire primary, but he has tossed more and more of that caution aside in recent days. Talking to reporters after the event in Peterborough, he allowed that "maybe we've caught some lightening in a bottle ... Maybe a sparkle."

By Sunday, he'd become even bolder.

"Frankly," he said in Salem, N.H., "we're winning this campaign."

That's probably because the McCain camp thinks he got the better of Romney in the debate Saturday.

For days, McCain aides had been viewing the debate as a chance to retaliate against Romney for the ads attacking McCain on immigration, an issue on which he is considered vulnerable. McCain had considered launching his own ads in response, but decided to hold fire.

His camp was concerned he would get dragged into a mud-slinging air war that could tarnish him as much as help. His team figured the debate and a candidate forum on Sunday would drive the news cycle anyway right up until primary day on Tuesday.

So, instead, he decided he would respond during the debate if given an opening. That opening came when he was asked if he still supported the legislation that he sponsored earlier this year that would have created a path for most of the nation's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants to become citizens. The McCain-Kennedy bill died in Congress.

McCain replied, "Sure, but..." and then gave his now standard line about how he would secure the borders first, and then deal with those illegal immigrants now in the country.

Romney pounced. "I disagree fundamentally that the 12 million people who come here illegally should be allowed to stay here permanently," he said. "I think that is a form of amnesty and that's not appropriate."

McCain said his plan did not provide for "amnesty."

"You can spend your whole fortune on attack ads and it still won't be true," he said.

During the tense exchange that followed, Romney said, "I don't describe your plan as amnesty in my ad. I don't call it amnesty."

McCain missed the opportunity then to point out that that's exactly what Romney's ads were saying, albeit coming out of the mouths of what Romney's campaign said were New Hampshire citizens. But McCain's spinners in the post-debate spin room were all over it. One of his closest advisors, Mark Salter, usually a pretty unflappable guy, was red-faced with outrage.

This "missed opportunity" has created doubts for a McCain slam-dunk tomorrow. "Has John McCain’s window closed as quickly as it opened?," asks the New York Times.

Joe Klein thinks so, but check out Ross Douthat's take on things:

I still expect McCain to win New Hampshire; I can't imagine that four days of campaigning, even with two debates crammed in, will be enough time for Romney to shift the polls back into his favor. But I think McCain had an opportunity, with Romney hurt by Iowa, Huckabee hurt by being Huckabee, and Thompson and Rudy seemingly out of the running, to seize the mantle of GOP frontrunner this week, and consign Romney's campaign to near-oblivion. After watching the debates, which highlighted McCain's weaknesses as a candidate for the Republican nomination rather than his strengths, I don't think that's going to happen. Even if McCain takes New Hampshire, I don't think this race will be any less wide-open going into Michigan and South Carolina than it is today.

I think it's simply time to lay back and let events unfold.

Perhaps McCain missed an opportunity during the debates. The truth is the momentum coming out of Iowa accrued to McCain, not Huckabee, the GOP's winner, and not Romney, who had campaigned in the Hawkeye State for a year.

McCain pulled something from providence to alight his campaign at the last minute. An 11th-hour Romney counter-surge in New Hampshire is probably a little late to shift the tide back in his favor.

One thing's for sure: If McCain doesn't win tomorrow, he's as good as done. He's staked his campaign's viability on a win in New Hampshire. A loss would be a traumatic let-down. He could continue to campaign until February 5, but the bright lights will have faded, and the Straight Talk Express will have seen better days.

McCain backers can bolster their hopes with the latest FOX News/Opinion Dynamics poll, which shows the Arizona Senator holding a substantial lead over Mitt Romney as of Sunday.

Can the dynamics change in one day? We'll see. Check back in the morning for updates on the latest buzz out of New Hampshire!

Photo Credit: Time

Bill Kristol at New York Times

William Kristol's first NewYork Times commentary piece appears today (see the reaction at Memeorandum) .

I wasn't all the impressed with it, considering he's basically endorsing Mike Huckabee for the GOP nomination. Maybe he's trying to downplay his more, let's say, forward orientation toward foreign affairs by saying a few nice words about the least prepared Republican in the field.

I posted a few words about Kristol's NYT gig here. What got me interested in Kristol this afternoon is Harry Stein's essay on the left-wing reaction to Kristol's appointment over at City Journal. It's a kicker:

Here is just a tiny, tiny sample of the reaction on the Huffington Post to the announcement that William Kristol will be writing a weekly column in the New York Times:

* “William ‘the Bloody’ Kristol is a beady eyed warmonger.”

* “Worthless suck up Kristol should be cleaning toilets in public restrooms for his GOP ‘friends.’”

* “I will never, ever, buy another issue of the newspaper, I will never again be a subscriber to your newspaper and I will do my level best to avoid any purchases from any NY Times advertiser.”

* “If the New York Times is going to hire a liar and a racist like Bill Kristol then they might as well hire Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Michael Savage, Bill O’Reilly, and Ari Fleischer.”

* “Kristol is an arrogant warmongering prick. I can’t stand the sight of him.”

* “Listening to Kristol, that war mongering crater face, is worse than listening to Bush, Cheney, and Richard Pearle all rolled up in one . . . I hate that decision and I will do everything I can to discredit this decision until they finally flush him down the toilet like the turd he is.”

And so it went, on this and dozens of other left-of-center sites. Sputtering fury. Vicious name-calling. Denunciations of the Times for this unspeakable act. Threats to cancel subscriptions and otherwise exact revenge.

For conservatives, long accustomed to self-serving liberal pieties about tolerance, the orgy of outrage at having to face an alien point of view was wonderful to behold, and no one enjoyed it more than the man at the storm’s center. As Kristol put it to Politico.com, with the obvious relish of the skinny guy on the beach who gets the girl in the fourth panel, “I was flattered watching blogosphere heads explode.” (This provoked a new round of outrage: “Lawd, this is one son of a bitch I detest,” a typical posting hissed. “Smarmy prick. I’m sure that amuses him even more.”)

In fact, about the only one seemingly surprised that Times readers would respond with such vehemence was the man most responsible for the appointment: editorial page editor Andy Rosenthal. Noting that he had trouble understanding “this weird fear of opposing views,” Rosenthal observed in an interview that Kristol “is a serious, respected conservative intellectual—and somehow that’s a bad thing. How intolerant is that?” There’s something almost touching in the naivety behind those words. Can Rosenthal truly be so unaware of the character of his own core readership? Does he actually believe that they’re open to challenge, or even reasonable back-and-forth? Doesn’t he read his own paper’s letters page? “David Brooks can write the mildest column in the world,” Bernard Goldberg observes, “and the letters to the editor act like he’s Hitler.” Now, to their horror, letter-writers face the prospect of regularly waking up to a leading exemplar of a far more aggressive conservatism—a muscular supporter of the war who has characterized the Times itself as “irredeemable.”

According to The Nation’s Katha Pollitt, “What this hire demonstrates is how successfully the right has intimidated the mainstream media. Their constant demonizing of the New York Times as the tool of the liberal elite worked.” What the appointment really suggests, however, is a degree of desperation at the Times that only its worst enemies have wished on that venerable institution. Always remarkable for the arrogance with which it brushed aside criticism, the paper has long cast itself as the unimpeachable arbiter of reality; and no one has proven less inclined to admit error (or give conservatives a fair shake) than that determinedly leftist child of the sixties, publisher Arthur “Pinch” Sulzberger. Yet after plummeting ad sales and circulation cut the stock price steeply enough to put even a family-controlled board on edge, Sulzberger was moved to do the hitherto unthinkable in a belated effort to broaden the paper’s appeal and reclaim its once-vaunted reputation for balance.

I love that phrase, "illiberal liberals," from the article's introduction. It's so true!

Still, I hope Kristol picks up steam a little bit. That debut's far from the juiciest red-meat neocon commentary Kristol could pump out!

The Hour is Late for Hillary Clinton

We've only had the Iowa caucuses, and already the buzz is that Hillary Clinton's through.

Matt Drudge provides online tabloid speculation that H.R.C. is ready to withdraw from the race.

I don't believe it for a second, as bad as things are.

Bob Shrum's got a more compelling argument over at the New York Daily News. He suggests Hillary won't be making an acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. Will Barack Obama give her a prime time speaking slot?

If (although I strongly suspect the right word is "when") Hillary Clinton loses tomorrow's New Hampshire primary, there will be a few proto-obituaries for her campaign and many more stories about how it will be "shaken up" or "relaunched." Scapegoats will be found and exiled: Mark Penn, the pollster and strategist, foremost among them. After all, the candidate can't very well dispense with the überstrategist who also happens to be her husband and who was fully complicit in designing and driving her message.

The flaw wasn't just the attempt to go back to the future, to the 1990s, but that the Clintons picked the wrong year in that decade. Instead of 1992, when Bill was the personification of change, their model was 1996. So Hillary ran as a pseudo-incumbent, with a selection of bite-size proposals and an abundance of caution and transparent calculation. Why would any campaign ever explicitly announce a tour to make the candidate "likable"? Or, as happened when the beleaguered Clinton machine sputtered into New Hampshire, that they now had a plan for her to be spontaneous and actually answer audience questions?

The Clinton industry, encrusted with the beneficiaries and acolytes of the first and probably only Clinton presidency, has turned Hillary into a product whose sell-by date has passed. In a year of change, she has been positioned as the establishment candidate. The relentless appeal to "experience" reinforces that - and too often elides into a dubious attempt to take credit for some of Bill's accomplishments.

More fundamentally, Hillary seems to be making an argument about herself, not the future or the voters. No wonder she is losing to a young senator who comes across as the leader of a revolution in our politics.

There could still be a Clinton miracle, but by tomorrow night she is more likely to be the KOd Kid than the Comeback Kid.

I like the analysis, but note Shrum's got a notoriously lousy record. He's failed miserably as a top campaign strategist for numerous unsuccessful presidential races. Yep, he's 0-7 in presidential elections, with the last being John Kerry's disastrous presidential run in 2004.

He could be right in this case, but don't bet on it.

Hillary probably will lose tomorrow. But there's still "Giga-Tuesday" on February 5, when 22 states will hold their primary contests. Even with an Obama sweep of Iowa and New Hampshire, there's still a race to be won, around the country, where voters are very different from the narrow constituencies of Des Moines or Concord.

Of course, talk of a Hillary slide is reasonable (and Clinton's tearful television interviews aren't helping her case for leadership), but look to other voices besides Shrum's for more credible analysis (and Matt Drudge is just chumming the blogging waters).

John McCain's Promise

Dorothy Rabinowitz clarifies the picture surrounding the McCain comeback, at the Wall Street Journal :

In the midst of all the gloomy prognostications that John McCain was as good as gone, one encountered person after unexpected person - people, that is, who don't vote Republican - who announced themselves McCain enthusiasts. They are an old story, these Americans who discovered Mr. McCain in 2000, but it is a story with new meaning today.

All those New York editors sitting in publishing houses, those teachers and publicists and medical professionals, remained solid McCainites. Whatever their political views, whatever shift in their opinions, they seemed, those I knew, to have lost none of their feeling for this candidate. For all his politically incorrect positions - his support of the war, and George Bush - or perhaps because of them, this core army of his admirers remains as certain as they ever were, if not more, that he's the man to lead the nation.

In the primary campaign of 2000, people stood for hours in the freezing cold. In upstate towns they waited for Mr. McCain, home-made signs in their hands, their messages so brief, so charged with the emotions of the men and women holding them - "AMERICAN HERO" - it took your breath away to see it. The transportation for the candidate and reporters traveling with him had been named, only half-mischievously, the Straight Talk Express.

Now, these hard years later, the meaning of that name takes on larger dimensions, and the straight talk in question -about the war, about his support for the president, his stand on immigration, all so costly to him, and so unhesitatingly given - has also been the making of him. It is this, first of all, that people recognize in him.

Almost as in the old days, he's begun to get plenty of respect from the media. Though the word "old" keeps showing up in regular, not always innocent and invariably hammy tributes - as when his name is attached to terms like "the old warrior" or simply "old soldier." There's indeed something suitable in the word as regards Mr. McCain, but it is nothing having to do with his age.

That ingrained pride of his that forbids pandering for political gain--that would be shamed by lying about his deeply held views - is what is old about him. Old in the sense that honor of this kind is sufficiently rare, now, that it's a subject of wonderment to people when they find it in someone, as they have in John McCain.

Also, don't miss the Boston Herald's comparison of McCain and Romney's relative experience.

I made the case for McCain on Sunday: "Can McCain Win the Conservative Vote?"

Check back for more updates (and see also Memeorandum).

McCain is Rejuvenated in New Hampshire

John McCain, who has surged to the front of the GOP pack coming out of Iowa, feels rejuvenated in New Hampshire. The New York Times reports:

Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign wheeled out a confetti gun on Saturday in Peterborough to boom a festive end to his 100th town-hall-style meeting. It was the same place he began his New Hampshire primary campaign of 2000.

Mr. McCain, a Republican, is methodically returning in these last days before the New Hampshire primary to the same venues he visited in that campaign, in which he defeated George W. Bush by 18 percentage points. He is surrounded by many of the same New Hampshire aides, telling many of the same jokes, appealing to the same voters and promising what seems like unlimited access to the state’s residents and reporters.

“It’s superstition,” Mr. McCain said Sunday. “And a bit of nostalgia.”

Yet there are crucial differences between this campaign and the one of 2000, and they reflect how Mr. McCain is in many ways a different candidate running a very different campaign in a very different time.

Mr. McCain, 71, is now more likely to wear a suit and tie as he paces his circles before audiences of voters, microphone in hand, head lowered as he waits for the next question.

The issues that he used to define his iconoclastic form of Republicanism have changed with the times. Talk of government reform, overhauling campaign finance and fixing Social Security has given way to national security and terrorism, scolding discussions of wasteful Republican spending, and global warming, an issue he said voters in this state placed on his agenda.

“It’s mostly the same old team on board, but it’s a different set of circumstances,” he said. “We’re in two wars. And we face the threat of radical Islamic extremism. We are in a little bit of a different environment.”

Mr. McCain has nowhere near the resources he did in 2000. His once gold-plated campaign organization collapsed last summer, unable to raise the money needed to sustain it. Mark McKinnon, his media adviser, is putting together advertisements for Mr. McCain at cost — allowing him to at least hold his own with his main opponent, Mitt Romney, on the air in the final hours of the campaign here.

Eight years ago, Mr. McCain would send invitations to 20,000 voters to try to ensure a good turnout for an event; this time, his aides said, they could typically afford just 5,000 mailers. Some of his closest aides — Mark Salter and Charles Black — say they are forgoing paychecks for now.

And the tone of Mr. McCain’s advertisements — and his attacks on opponents, arrows sheathed in jokes — have grown more acerbic. That, his aides said, reflected the lessons he learned in 2000 after an embittering defeat by Mr. Bush in South Carolina; in that showdown, which pretty much ended his presidential hopes for that campaign, Mr. McCain refused to run attack advertisements responding to Mr. Bush.

In New Hampshire in 2000, Mr. Bush took issue when Mr. McCain ran an advertisement saying, there is “only one man running for president who knows the military and understands the world.”

This time, to make the same point about Mr. Romney, also a governor with no foreign experience, Mr. McCain has run advertisements on the Internet that show jarring images of terrorists in masks holding guns. One of his main television ads spotlights Mr. Romney’s changing positions on some issues, and highlights an editorial in The Concord Monitor calling him “a phony.”

And Mr. McCain’s post-New Hampshire prospects, should he win on Tuesday, are if anything less certain than they were in 2000, when he left this state confident that he would beat Mr. Bush. He has barely any organization in Michigan, the next state to vote, said Saul Anuzis, the state Republican chairman there. Mr. McCain was forced to lay off all but one of his staff members because of his financial difficulties.

A win tomorrow will replenish the McCain warchest, however, as the victory momentum carries over into an uptick in financial contributions.

McCain's looking ahead to November, in any case, declaring Sunday that he'd beat Barack Obama in the general election (via Memeorandum).

See also Betsy Newmark on McCain's bipartisan appeal.

GOP Looking at Decisive New Hampshire Vote

Jackie Calmes argues the New Hampshire Republican vote is decisive, from the Wall Street Journal:

The outcome of tomorrow's close U.S. presidential primary vote in New Hampshire could be decisive for the Republicans: A loss for either John McCain or Mitt Romney may prove to be a mortal blow.

Mr. McCain, the Arizona senator, has made New Hampshire his make-or-break comeback state after his front-running campaign all but collapsed last summer. Yesterday he continued to gain in state polls and endorsements on Mr. Romney. But with no money and little organization elsewhere, even supporters concede tomorrow's vote is do or die.

"We gotta win in New Hampshire, we need to win in New Hampshire, I think we're gonna win in New Hampshire," said South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, campaigning up north for his Senate friend.

For Mr. Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, to lose the state next door would be humiliating -- all the more so after last week's upset loss to former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in Iowa's kickoff caucuses.

Mr. Romney had based his strategy on winning the first two states. Even before the Iowa defeat, he had lost his New Hampshire polling lead to a revived Mr. McCain. Now, with little time to brake Mr. McCain's momentum, he has been thrown on the defensive by all of his rivals, who sense blood.

Whatever happens in New Hampshire, the final McCain-Romney showdown could come next week in Michigan -- the state where Mr. Romney's father was governor, and which Mr. McCain won in his 2000 nomination fight against George W. Bush.

"Whoever loses" in New Hampshire "is mortally wounded and will probably be finished off in Michigan," predicts John Weaver, the chief strategist to Mr. McCain until the campaign ran aground last summer.

The Democrats' primary tomorrow also will be critical. New York Sen. Hillary Clinton is trying to recover from her Iowa loss and winner Barack Obama, the Illinois senator, has erased her longtime polling lead here.

Yet uncommitted Democrats insist that Mrs. Clinton, with a machine co-piloted by former President Clinton and deep support nationally, could lose here on top of Iowa, lose the Democrats' Jan. 26 primary in South Carolina, and still win the nomination. She would do so on the strength of victories Feb. 5, "Super Tuesday," when more than 20 states hold contests. Mr. Clinton is reminding one and all that he lost five states in 1992 before winning one, yet went on to be president.

Complicating calculations, Democrat Obama and Republican McCain are competing across party lines for independents, who comprise the biggest voting bloc and can cast ballots in either primary. But unlike 2000, when Mr. McCain's maverick candidacy won their votes to pad his 19-point win over Mr. Bush, this year many independents are antiwar. Mr. McCain is perhaps the highest-profile supporter of the effort in Iraq. Polls show many leaning to Mr. Obama.

Romney backers hope Mr. Obama takes those votes. "Then the Republican primary will be very Republican, and that's good" for Mr. Romney, says Tom Rath, a prominent New Hampshire Republican who is a senior strategist for the campaign.

A second defeat for Mr. Romney "would be tough, but a strong second would mean that he could go on," says adviser Ben Ginsberg. He predicts a Romney win in Michigan and then "surprises" in South Carolina's Jan. 19 Republican primary, the first where he'll benefit from low expectations. Mr. Romney has struggled for support in South Carolina because he is suspect among many of the Christian conservatives so influential there, due to his support in Massachusetts for abortion rights, gay rights and gun control -- positions he has reversed -- and because of his Mormon faith.

Unlike Mr. McCain, whose campaign operates on credit and volunteer strategists, the wealthy Mr. Romney can continue to supplement his well-greased organization from his bankroll as contributions slack off. But without victories, he will find it hard to justify going on.

Also, the Republican establishment, long favorably inclined to Mr. Romney, now frets that the candidates' battle to date -- by highlighting his many policy flip-flops -- has damaged him as a potential nominee against the Democrats. If Mr. McCain were to make a comeback, Republicans say, he would regain his standing as the Republican most likely to beat a Democrat. That "electability" argument would power his candidacy in a field that many Republican voters view as flawed.

I'm feeling confident on McCain's chances, although I understand he's going to be a hard sell for a lot of conservatives.

Perhaps it's McCain's compromise on immigration reform; maybe it's the McCain-Feingold campaign finance legislation; or maybe it's the Arizona Senator's vote against the Bush tax cuts (which weren't matched with spending discipline). Who knows exactly? McCain stirs a lot of resentment, in any case (here and here, for example).

Yet, as I've noted, some conservatives are coming around to McCain's banner, and, of course, New Hampshire voters are backing the Arizona Senator in poll after poll, with USA Today's new survey showing McCain surging ahead of the pack on the eve of the New Hampshire vote.

I'm convinced that conservatives will see the light on McCain soon enough.

Can McCain Win the Conservative Vote?

At a town hall meeting in Bedford, N.H., a man vied for the attention of Senator John McCain.

************

With John McCain on a hot streak coming out of the Iowa caucuses, speculation is turning to McCain's chances as the Republican standard-bearer. Will conservatives who long ago wrote McCain off as old news - or hopelessly liberal - give the Arizona Senator a second look?

Can McCain win the backing of conservatives in a general election matchup against the Democratic nominee (who's looking to be Barack Obama, if the Iowa results serve as a decisive harbinger of change)?

Jim Addison over at Wizbang offers a concise endorsement for a shift to McCain among conservatives (via Memeorandum):

My long lamented friend Jesse Burke, a man who lived in excruciating pain from the most severe and crippling form of rheumatoid arthritis, inspired many people to overcome their challenges. His motto was, "A winner never quits - and a quitter never wins!" He never met John McCain, that I know of, but they share kindred spirits.

I, with many others, wrote off the McCain campaign earlier last year after they had squandered their early money for little result, and the candidate moved in to "restructure" the effort. Normally in politics that is an early sign of a quick exit from a race. McCain vowed to fight on, and most of us in the chattering classes yawned and turned our attention elsewhere.

Award points for perseverance: McCain slogged on with his streamlined campaign. His return to viability consisted of equal parts of his own recovery and of the gradual diffusion of support for his rivals. The Republican nomination race is once again a wide-open contest, and guess who is in the thick of it?

As most conservatives do, I have grave reservations on McCain's past positions on Campaign Finance Reform, the "Gang of 14," and the McCain-Kennedy immigration bill. I have on more than one occasion vowed I would stay home rather than vote for him for President, but I must admit that if the choice presented is McCain or Hillary Clinton/Barack Obama/John Edwards, I could not, in good conscience, not vote for him.

For conservatives, holding one's nose with one hand as the other pulls a lever is nothing new. We've been doing it for decades, with the sole reprieve of Ronald Reagan (who violated enough conservative principles himself to earn our ire).

If it's McCain, or Hillary, what say you? If not voting is your choice, do you not at least admit you would endanger the country thereby?

See a also RightwingSparkle, "Why McCain?"

The choice hasn't been hard for me. See my earlier posts on the McCain campaign, and his comeback, here, here, here, here , here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Why McCain? Why should McCain be the pick for conservatives in 2008?

I made the case for McCain throughout 2007.

I've heard all the criticisms: He's too old; he's too liberal; he's selling out our First Amendment rights with his liberal alliance on campaign finance; he's in bed with Kennedy on immigration...and so on.

But McCain has been right on the war in Iraq, which should be a decisive issue for conservatives. His recent debate performances have been steely; and throughout it all, thick and thin, McCain has stood strong on his values, not jumping ship on all the issues when facing heat or when the political wind is turning.

McCain's also "the one" on issues besides the war and terrorism. He's firm on spending, and he'll work to reform earmarks. He's pro-life as well. On immigration, he's learned his lessons and will stick with border security first before worrying about the other pressing elements of comprehensive reform.

The conservative opposition to McCain doesn't serve the GOP well. Thompson waited way too long to enter the race, and Giuliani's primary strategy is flawed. Huckabee is a good guy, but he's way out of his league on foreign policy, and his record on crime and fiscal policy leaves a lot to be desired.

McCain will pull Republicans together with his ability to promote compromise and accomodation. Partisanship's vital, of course, but the country's obviously seeking change, and tweaking some conservative positions might work to coopt some of the demands for a new direction.

I suggest readers take a few minutes to review McCain's commencement address at the New School University in New York from May 2006.

McCain's address is a magnificent statement of America's enduring principles and values. It is also a fair and humble speech, placing America's faults within the context of our historic opportunities. These are the words of a true patriot, of a true leader.

I hope conservatives will recognize McCain - like any man - has made mistakes, but he doesn't compromise his values, and he's right for America in 2008.

Photo Credit: New York Times

Post-Iowa Polls Show McCain Pulling Out Lead

A Concord Monitor/Research 2000 poll, following up New Hampshire voter preferences after the Iowa caucuses, shows John McCain pulling out 6-point lead over Mitt Romney (via Memeorandum):

John McCain has doubled his support since mid-December and leads Mitt Romney, 35 percent to 29 percent, according to a Concord Monitor/Research 2000 post-Iowa survey of likely Republican primary voters in New Hampshire. Mike Huckabee was the choice of 13 percent of those surveyed, followed by Rudy Giuliani at 8 percent, Ron Paul at 7 percent, Fred Thompson at 3 percent and Duncan Hunter at 1 percent.

Also, a new CNN/WMUR New Hampshire presidential primary poll has McCain holding a solid lead over Romney in the Granite State:

The new poll suggests McCain is now the front-runner in the battle for the Republican presidential nomination in New Hampshire.

Thirty-three percent of likely GOP Granite State primary voters support the senator from Arizona, with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney six points back at 27 percent.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani's in third place at 14 percent, with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in fourth place at 11 percent.

Rep. Ron Paul of Texas follows with 9 percent, and Rep. Duncan Hunter of California and former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee are tied at 1 percent.

Huckabee won the Republican Iowa caucuses, with Romney coming in second, even though Romney's campaign vastly outspent Huckabee's organization in Iowa.

Romney was the front-runner in most New Hampshire polls until last month, when McCain pulled even in many surveys.

"It looks like Huckabee's victory among Iowa Republicans helped John McCain more than Mike Huckabee. Huckabee gained one point among New Hampshire Republicans. McCain gained four. A week ago, McCain and Mitt Romney were tied in New Hampshire. Now McCain now leads Romney by 6 points," said [CNN senior political analyst Bill] Schneider.

With two days to go, and with what sounds like a solid debate performance Saturday night (see here, here and here), the Arizona Senator looks poised to reprise his 2000 New Hampshire primary win.

Clinton Campaign On the Ropes

Hillary Clinton's campaign has been shaken to the core by its third place showing in Iowa. Karen Tumulty over at Time as an analysis:

The scope of Barack Obama's victory in Iowa has shaken the Clinton machine down to its bolts. Donors are panicking. The campaign has been making a round of calls to reassure notoriously fickle "superdelegates" — elected officials and party regulars who are awarded convention spots by virtue of their titles and positions — who might be reconsidering their decisions to back the candidate who formerly looked like a sure winner. And internally, a round of recriminations is being aimed at her chief strategist, Mark Penn, as the representative of everything about her pseudo-incumbent campaign that has been too cautious, too arrogant, too conventional and too clueless as to how much the political landscape has shifted since the last Clinton reign. One adviser summed up the biggest challenge that faces the campaign in two words: "Fresh thinking."

Specifically, those inside the campaign and outside advisers fault Penn for failing to see the Iowa defeat coming. They say he was assuring Clinton and her allies right up until the caucuses that they would win it. Says one: "He did not predict in any way, shape or form the tidal wave we saw." In particular, he had assured them that Clinton's support among women would carry her through. Yet she managed to win only 30% of the women's vote, while 35% of them went for Obama.

A modest rise in Iowa turnout from traditional levels — say by about 20,000 or 30,000 — might have been easy to write off as merely the result of superior tactics on the part of the well-funded Obama operation. But the fact that voters flooded the caucuses, and that Obama swept just about every demographic group, speaks to something larger that is going on in the electorate, Clinton strategists now acknowledge.

That leaves them facing problems on two levels. The first, and easier one to grapple with, is how to deal with Obama. Even as the results in Iowa were still coming in, the Clinton campaign was mobilizing onto an attack footing. But it's possible that the most difficult problem is not Obama; it could be Clinton. How can she retool her message — and her identity as a virtual incumbent — to resonate with an electorate that seems to yearn more for change than any other quality? Says one longtime Democratic strategist, who is close to the Clintons: "Fundamentally, she is who she is; she can't change who she is, and maybe this is not her time."

Actually, I didn't see Obama winning Iowa until the last few days. Clinton's inevitability seemed just that, inevitable. Her bumps on the road to Iowa - for example, in her flip-flopping debate performances - didn't seem to derail her prospects. Nationally, Clinton still held dramatic leads over her rivals in public opinion. Things looked like they were going as planned.

But in the last couple of days before Iowa we saw local polling presaging an Obama upset. It's always good to take survey results with a grain of salt, but these polls nailed it.

What's it going to take for Hillary to pull it together? New polling shows that race has tightened. While Clinton's campaign continues to hammer Obama on inexperience, it's fairly clear that experience is the last thing voters in Iowa were looking for.

Sure, New Hampshire voters are less volatile, they're less inclined to the politics of experiential repudiation, right? Perhaps not. The Clinton campaign is faced with the monumental short-term task of transmogrifying the candidate into an agent of change. This is after hammering for months the rock-solid credentials of Hillary's six years in the Senate and "decades of experience" fighting for the empowerment of the disenfranchised.

How will it all turn out? Clinton's still in the game, for sure. She could lose New Hampshire, but still have a strong opportunity to take a majority of the upcoming primaries and caucuses. It does look, however, that 2008 is shaping up to be one of those monumental election years of fundamental transformation, as seen in the Iowa results from both parties.

It's still early, but momentum is a powerful thing. This year's multi-format mass-media saturation has magnified momentum intensely. Tuesday in New Hampshire might be the most important first-in-the-nation primary we've seen since the 1970s.

(Note also that Clinton was booed at a New Hamphire campaign stop today. That can't augur well for her chances on Tuesday.)

Photo Credit: Time