For all the lazy comparisons being made to 2008, after New Hampshire it should be crystal clear that this is no replay of the last contested Democratic nomination campaign or even the Republican race. Eight years ago, an upstart candidate running with grass roots spirit arrived in New Hampshire expecting the best. After a strong result in Iowa, the insurgent senator believed he was heading for a resounding victory.
Instead, Obama suffered a dismal defeat but delivered an inspirational speech that kept hope alive through a long slog to the nomination: Yes We Can.
On Tuesday night in New Hampshire, the trappings of the insurgent campaign — embraced by so many young supporters — looked familiar. The white and blue signs read and looked alike: A Future to Believe In, echoing the 2008 signs, Change We Can Believe In.
But otherwise, Bernie Sanders bears no similarity to Barack Obama. There was no uplifting sweep though the history of people power in Sanders’ victory speech; there was a diatribe against the state of today’s economy, national security and politics. There was no outreach to unite red and blue America; there was a rallying cry to keep Republicans out of office. Si, se puede?
And in the exceptional 2016 political cycle, Hillary Clinton is not even then same Hillary Clinton. Not only are her results in Iowa and New Hampshire the opposite of her results eight years ago, but the candidate herself is behaving and performing in a strikingly different way.
Clinton recognises the dire situation she faces in her quest to win the nomination several states earlier than she did in 2008. Back then, she lacked an early state plan beyond Iowa; on Tuesday she promised a national war of attrition. “Now we take this campaign to the entire country,” she said. “We’re going to fight for every vote in every state.”
The exit polls suggested both encouraging and devastating news for Clinton in trying to get all those votes. She won the minority vote in New Hampshire by 12 points, which bodes well for her in the upcoming states of South Carolina and Nevada — but she lost the women’s vote by the same margin, despite running on the promise of becoming the first woman president.
Clinton won older voters (the over-65s) by 18 points and pretty much tied Sanders among those aged between 44 and 65 years, two crucial groups in the low-voting states ahead. But she was crushed by voters in their 20s and 30s, underscoring a core weakness she also suffered in 2008.
On the opposite side of the aisle, the self-styled maverick of 2008 had to fight his way through the early state contests, coming in just enough ahead to enter Super Tuesday in a strong position. But John McCain was practically domesticated compared to the current Republican front-runner, Donald Trump. Where McCain prided himself on his national security expertise, Donald Trump simply promises to beat China and Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), with a strategy to be determined later.
Where McCain corrected the excesses of his supporters at campaign events, Trump celebrates them. Where McCain had endured and opposed continuing the use of torture, Trump promises Republicans a return to waterboarding.
Eight years ago, the GOP establishment had two candidates to choose from; in 2016 the Republican mainstream has formed a circular firing squad as one greying governor tried to beat another into third or fourth place in New Hampshire. At some point, the single-digit differences between the middle-tier Republican candidates only reinforced their bland similarity.
Further down the field, there were enough straws to clutch for several candidates to delude themselves into campaigning in several more states. After a TV debate in which Chris Christie destroyed Marco Rubio, the New Jersey governor clawed his way into clear space ... in sixth position.
Yet he did manage to drive Rubio, the candidate formerly known as Democrats’ greatest fear, down from a third place in Iowa to fifth place in New Hampshire. (Let the record show that Marcomentum hit a brick wall in the Granite State.)
Back in 2008, the early states winnowed the field. This time around, the Republican establishment is so divided that their collective nightmare — a Trump victory — might become reality with barely one-third of a state’s votes.
It feels like the country is still stuck in 2010, when Tea Party anger tore through the primaries and general election. And with such different candidates in both fields — and in such a different political environment — there is no reason to believe this cycle will follow the path of 2008.
On the Democratic side, South Carolina is unlikely to deliver confirmation of the insurgent’s potential, especially since the party’s super-delegates of elected officials are unlikely to start splitting towards Sanders as the race continues. On the Republican side, Super Tuesday tilts towards the southern states — including Texas, the home state of the Iowa winner, Ted Cruz. Far from ending early, the Republican race could continue to be contested through the California primary in June.
The voters of New Hampshire, who delivered their verdict on Tuesday, are famously independent and contrarian: they love to overturn the judgement of the voters of Iowa; they like to switch their voting intentions late in the primary campaign; and, yes, they live in a state with the slogan “Live Free or Die”.
But on Tuesday night they delivered what might just be the most independent verdict in the history of the first-in-the-nation primary: by picking Trump and Sanders as their nominees, New Hampshire told the political establishment they need to change or die.
The danger for both parties is that a long campaign might just do both: change and die. As the candidates adapt to the times and one another, they may well drive up each other’s negatives and drive down their own positive numbers. Just ask Marco Rubio and Chris Christie what that feels like.
— Guardian News & Media Ltd
Richard Wolffe is a Guardian US columnist. An MSNBC political analyst for a decade, Wolffe was most recently vice-president and executive editor of MSNBC.com and is the author of Renegade: The Making of a President, Revival: The Struggle for Survival Inside the Obama White House.
