By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Original Sources (www.originalsources.com)
February 2, 2000
In all the hoopla and extensive coverage given the New Hampshire primary yesterday, I didn’t hear any reporter put into perspective what was occurring there. Delegates were being selected in a primary election who will eventually decide at the Republican and Democrat Conventions which candidates New Hampshire’s and last week the Iowa caucuses will chose and the party standard bearers.
Although from the coverage it appears that the two states wield a huge amount of power, the delegation only represent the number of electoral votes the states have. Iowa will have 7 electoral votes and New Hampshire will have four electoral votes out of a total of 438, yet, to hear to network news tell it, primary in New Hampshire was an event that practically sets the stage for the standard bearers for the Republican and Democratic parties this fall.
Dem. & GOP
Primaries:
New Hampshire
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Of the total number of votes, 370,060 cast, 228,717 were cast for one of the five Republican candidates and 141,343 were cast for one of the two Democrats. Put another way, of the people who voted in the New Hampshire Primary, 62% of them voted Republican and 38% voted Democrat.
This compares with the 1996 Presidential election in which 490,140 votes were cast with 40% going to Republican Bob Dole in the Presidential election, 50% going to Bill Clinton and 10% going to Ross Perot.
Were there a lot of Independents and Democrats voting Republican yesterday to select the least conservative of the Republican candidates to assure liberal candidates in both parties? Or, does it mean that in the intervening four years from 1996 approximately 22% of the New Hampshire electorate has moved from the Democrat side to the Republican side?
There is something strange about 62% of the New Hampshire voters voting Republican. Perhaps it’s a remarkable move to the right by nearly a quarter of the people of New Hampshire. On the other hand, it is an explanation for what has been labeled a "poor showing" for the four Republicans who were vying for conservatives votes in New Hampshire - George W. Bush, Steve Forbes, Alan Keyes and Gary Bauer.
Perhaps the strangest aspect of this situation is the near jubilation that McCain’s victory was greeted with by the media. John McCain not only sat out the Iowa caucuses, he even went out of his way to anger Iowa farmers with some of his comments, while devoting all of his time to New Hampshire. Certainly the media cuddling he was receiving yesterday after his surprisingly large victory over George W. Bush was financially well worth his miserable 5% of the vote in Iowa. So far he hasn’t even been able to get on the ballot in New York, which has 33 electoral votes.
Whatever the story behind this story, the pressures put on Bauer, Keyes and Forbes by interviewers urging them to "tell" when they were going to "get out of the race" were intense on the networks last night. Perhaps it is just their determination to make, rather than report the news. At any rate, the disappointed Republican candidates last night probably don’t have the whole story about what was going on behind the scenes in New Hampshire yesterday.
To comment: mmostert@originalsources.com
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