Tag: New Hampshire 08 (page 2)

If Markos of Daily Kos, a very astute observer without a dog in this fight is correct, it's a tsunami.

That means those of us voting in the 47 states other than Iowa, NH and SC won't have an impact in determining who our nominee will be.

What a silly system. I haven't even decided whether I'm going to vote for Hillary Clinton or John Edwards on February 5 -- 9 months before the election -- and it's already too late for my vote to matter.

What's even sillier is that the decision as to who gets the Democratic nomination is being made more by Independents than by registered Democrats, since these early states allow Independents to vote in the Democratic primary and they are turning out in droves.

Barack Obama in New Hampshire:

In Lebanon, N.H., Obama criticized rival Hillary Rodham Clinton for chastising him in a weekend debate for raising "false hopes" about what he can deliver for the country. Obama said President Kennedy didn't look at the moon and decide getting there would be a false hope, and Martin Luther King didn't decide segregation couldn't end.

"If anything crystalized what this campaign is about, it was that right there," Obama said of Clinton's comment in the debate. "Some are thinking in terms of our constraints, and some are thinking about our limitless possibilities."

Hillary responded today -- making the point that it was a Democratic president, Lyndon Johnson, who made Dr, King's dream, the Civil Rights Act, a reality. here's the video, it's at 3:45 minutes in.

Obama also invoked Dr. King in Manchester today.

“When people ask me, ‘Why are you running?’ it’s not because of any long-lived ambitions. I’m not running because I feel it is owed to me. I’m running because of what Dr. King called the ‘fierce urgency of now.’ ”

Who does the media accuse of playing the card? Hillary. Go figure.

Update: Josh Marshall has the full quote ...More

As the media continues tonight to claw Hillary Clinton -- it's just sickening to watch -- now there's this:

Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign stop was interrupted on Monday when two men stood in the crowd and began screaming, "Iron my shirt!" during one the New York senator's final appearances before New Hampshire voters cast primary ballots Tuesday.

Clinton, a former first lady running to become the nation's first female president, laughed at the seemingly sexist protest that suggested a woman's place is doing the laundry and not running the country.

"Ah, the remnants of sexism -- alive and well," Clinton said to applause in a school auditorium.

..."As I think has been abundantly demonstrated, I am also running to break through the highest and hardest glass ceiling," she said. Clinton later joked about the incident as she invited questions.

Update: Think Progress lays out the hypocrisy of media treatment.

Update: Ezra Klein has Obama's and Edward's responses. Go read.

Hillary Clinton showed emotion today when responding to a New Hampshire voter at a campaign stop. The video is here.

She took an unexpected question from a woman in the audience. "My question is very personal, how do you do it?" asked Marianne Pernold Young, a freelance photographer from Portsmouth, New Hampshire. "How do you, how do you keep upbeat and so wonderful?"

"It's not easy, and I couldn't do it if I didn't passionately believe it was the right thing to do. You know I have [had] so many opportunities from this country [I] just don't want to see us fall backwards," she said. Then, her voice breaking and tears in her eyes, she said, "You know, this is very personal for me. It's not just political it's not just public. I see what's happening, and we have to reverse it."

She added:

"Some people think elections are a game, lot's of who's up or who's down, [but] it's about our country , it's about our kids' futures, and it's really about all of us together," she said.

Did she cry? Not that it should matter, but no, she didn't. She showed emotion. Will the media now blast her as weak instead of shrill?

Are blogs influencing the New Hampshire voters? As an admittedly unscientific experiment, I just checked the last 100 visitors to a few sites.

None of TalkLeft's last 100 visitors logged on from New Hampshire. As to others: Daily Kos: 2; Firedoglake: 2; My DD: 0; Atrios: 1; Crooks and Liars: 0.

A new CNN/WMUR poll taken Jan. 5 and 6 has been released. I got the actual poll results by e-mail.

Interviews with 341 New Hampshire residents who say they will vote in the Democratic primary and 268 New Hampshire residents who say they will vote in the Republican primary conducted by telephone.

The margin of error is 5 points for the total vote and 8 points for the Registered Democrat/Independent voters and men/women voters.

The results are below, and there are some interesting contradictions:

Another Republican debate in New Hampshire is now on Fox News. Is anybody watching? I am. I'm not going to live blog, but I will add some thoughts here or in the comments. Hope you join me.

6:12 pm. Romney and Huckabee are fighting. Romney to Huckabee" "You make up facts faster than you talk and that's pretty fast."

Giuliani is a terrible debater. He's all statistics and nothing loses a tv audience faster than stats and percentages. It's TV 101.

6:34 pm: McCain says he knows how to get Osama bin Laden and he will get him. If he does know how to get him, isn't it his patriotic duty to tell George Bush?

6:55 pm: Huckabee: The prisoners at Guantanamo are being treated "too darn good." Fred Thompson says, well they have certain rights.

Given the importance the media is attaching to the New Hampshire primary (as it did with Iowa) I'm wondering about the state's population and demographics. Who are these people who may be so influential in picking the Democratic nominee? Here's some reference points:

• Total population (2006 census): 1.3 million.
• Percentage over age 65: 12.4 (same as national). 95.8 of residents are white, 1.1% are African-American. 6.6% live below the poverty line (compared with 12.7% nationally.)
• There are 234 incorporated cities and towns.

More...

One of the things that bothered me about last night's debate was Barack Obama's answer to the final question: "Tell me one thing you've said in those debates that you wish you hadn't said. And it's your chance to take it back."

He began with Hillary who said there were one or two things, didn't specify what they were and then went on to give a closing statement.

Edwards and Richardson answered with specific examples (Richardson wished he hadn't named Wizzer White as a great Supreme Court Justice and Edwards said he wished he hadn't criticized Hillary's jacket at an earlier debate.)

Obama, seizing on Hillary's refusal to name an error and give a closing statement instead, said "there have been all kinds of aspects to my debate performance that I'd love to correct or sharpen," and used the final seconds to give his closing statement.

Below is what Hillary said and what Obama said. Hillary's answer is issue-specific. Obama's is generalities and buzzwords. [More...]

It's all well and good for those of us around the nation and internet to weigh in on tonight's Democratic debate. But, what matters for Tuesday is what New Hampshire voters think...and what they will read in their morning papers.

• WMUR: Focus Group Reaction
• Concord Monitor: How the Candidates Did
• The Union Leader: Dems Talk Tough on Getting Bin Laden
• The Union Leader: Independent's Day

All of the Democratic candidates looked tired tonight. No wonder. Check out Hillary's day that appeared in the Concord Monitor(describing how she spent it giving up the stump speeches and instead answering questions from voters for hours.)

Here's Sunday's candidate schedule.

[Update: Debate transcript here.]

This is the moment of the debate. Hillary Clinton responds to John Edwards' defense of Barack Obama (and you are right to wonder if John Edwards is trying to win the nomination if he is spending his time in a debate defending Barack Obama) and his attack on Hillary Clinton (he even insinuated that Hillary should drop out of the race; talk about presmptuous).

Hillary responds with passion. It was reminiscent in style to Ronald Reagan's moment in the 1980 New Hampshire debate after he had lost to George H.W. Bush in Iowa:

I think Democratic partisans will love this moment for Hillary and wonder if John Edwards is still trying to win. I think people who dislike Hillary will call it shrill. Of course that response is sexist. Will the Media reveal its sexism again? I predict they will. I think that is less important than how Democratic partisans react to it.

Update (TL): My favorite clips were where she talked about how words aren't action and how her feelings were hurt when Gibson said she isn't likeable. Also memorable and moving: When she said having the first woman president would be change.

Also check out her Fact Hub for sourcing of her criticisms of Obama because the chair of his NH campaign is a drug company lobbyist and his flip-flopping on the Patriot Act extension and vote to fund the war in Iraq. It also has the details of her record in New Hampshire.

[Update (TL): Debate transcript here.]

[Update: Debate transcript here.]

The Democratic debate is over. Live thread one is here. This thread is for post-debate comments.

What did you think? Who won? Who scored points and who lost them?

Big Tent Democrat says: [More....]