NH: Obamomentum & Romney Rebound

My hunch for the New Hampshire primary outcome tomorrow night is Barack by a mile and Mitt by a nose. If it does turn out that way, the reasons will interlock.  Here's how:

Sen. Obama's huge momentum coming out of Iowa, and the sense of Hillary Clinton's spiralling collapse, will pull NH independents into his camp and away from John McCain -- their darling, the state's 2000 winner, and this year's Mr. Comeback.

Forced to rely mostly on votes from his own, oft-betrayed party, Sen. McCain will come up just short in the Republican primary as Gov. Romney slips past him for the narrow victory he so desperately needs after losing Iowa -- and which his consistent strength in the NH polls these many months (see Real Clear Politics, scroll to bottom graph) has foretold all along.

 And by the way: New Hampshire's flukey rule that lets unaffiliated "floater voters" swoop into either party's primaries on a whim is a second big reason -- Iowa's convoluted, unrepresentative caucus process being the first -- why the public interest would be served by finding a less nutty way of kicking off the presidential nominating process before we have to go through all of this again in 2012 or 2016.

End the insane political duopoly of Iowa-NH, please!

Bookmark/Search this post with: