By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
1. Will an Obama victory knock Clinton out of the race?
A decision to quit would be totally out of character. Hillary Rodham Clinton has already said she will go forward no matter what happens in New Hampshire. As Democratic strategist Bill Carrick put it: "No one quits a presidential campaign until they run out of money. Senator Clinton has money. She will be around till at least February 5th."
That day is the equivalent of a national primary, with states such as California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas and Georgia holding contests. Those states are rich in delegates, and some could set up well for Clinton.
But a loss in New Hampshire would be a crippling blow. Clinton loyalists are already worried about losing the potentially pivotal Jan. 26 primary in South Carolina, where African American voters play a predominant role. Her team long has believed that Nevada, which votes on Jan. 19, is strong Clinton country, but that could change if Barack Obama picks up support from the influential Culinary Workers union.
Beyond money, Clinton has tenacity and the experience of having been knocked down before. Her biggest challenge will be buying time. She will have 11 days between New Hampshire and Nevada to start changing the dynamic of the race.
"She will remain in the fight through Feb. 5th hoping that Obama stumbles and that her experience message finally gets some traction," wrote Donnie Fowler, a Democratic strategist. "The real question is how much drama will spill out of Camp Clinton in the meantime. Not a pretty prospect if past is prologue."
2. Will either race end in New Hampshire?
If Obama wins, it's possible everyone will look back at New Hampshire and say that's where the Democratic race ended. But even if Clinton were considered effectively out, there's John Edwards to think about.
The former senator decided to become Obama's wingman in the Democratic debate on Saturday, ganging up on Clinton. But his real hope is for Clinton to fade away, turning the race into a one-on-one contest about who is the real change agent.
Though Edwards will be at a big financial disadvantage, a Democratic strategist said, "I don't discount Edwards's ability to stay in, and he has, as always, the sharpest message."
Democratic strategist Ron Klain offered another reason for the race to keep going. "Given that an unprecedented number of Democrats have given an unprecedented amount of money to permit senators Clinton and Obama to carry their message nationally, neither should leave the race until that has happened: i.e., until a large cross section of Democrats from around the country have had a chance to cast their votes."
The Republican race, on the other hand, may just be getting started. If John McCain wins Tuesday, the Republican Party will have winners of the first two contests who hardly conform to party orthodoxy and who, three months ago, no one said had a chance of being the nominee.
Party strategists believe a McCain victory here would set the stage for a much longer GOP battle. Michigan could become a decisive contest between Mitt Romney and McCain. Mike Huckabee, who placed first in Iowa, is pointing to South Carolina for his second win. Rudolph W. Giuliani has been banking on Florida so long that he's become a resident. And as one of Fred Thompson's advisers put it (hopefully) before Iowa, "Chaos is our friend."
3. Will a McCain victory knock Romney out of the race?
Romney would be in an even more difficult situation than Clinton. His entire strategy, devised a year ago, has been based on winning Iowa and New Hampshire in order to build momentum heading toward Feb. 5.
So he'll keep going. But a loss to McCain today would mean he'd have blown tens of millions of dollars on what turned out to be a failed strategy, with just one option left to keep his candidacy alive: victory in Michigan on Jan. 15.
Michigan is home for Romney. He grew up there, and his father, George, was governor in the 1960s. But McCain won the state against George W. Bush in 2000, and Huckabee should have support among religious conservatives in the western part of the state.
To win Michigan, Romney may have to spend the family fortune. He's shown a willingness all along to dig deep into his own pockets to secure the nomination, but this could make the savvy businessman think twice.
"Romney has the financial resources to compete through Super Tuesday," said Republican strategist Scott Reed. "But he will lose confidence by Florida if he has not scored a win."
4. Will a surge in independents help Obama or McCain?
Both will benefit from independents, but the betting in New Hampshire is that independents will be drawn to Obama far more than to McCain. The senator from Arizona was their darling in 2000, and he siphoned off some potential support for Bill Bradley against Al Gore.
But McCain 2008 is not McCain 2000. He may rattle his party's establishment, but his identification as a leading supporter of President Bush's war policy makes him seem less the maverick than he was eight years ago.
Independents in New Hampshire shifted decisively to the Democrats in the 2006 midterm elections, in large part because of opposition to the Iraq war. They are likely to stay parked there for now -- and Obama's candidacy seems tailor-made for them.
As a result, he stands to gain most. As Mark Mellman,
a Democratic pollster, put it, "He is hotter, cooler and
newer."
5. Should Clinton have gone negative once she lost Iowa?
The experts say this is the wrong question. At a time when the Clinton campaign is coming under severe criticism, there is widespread agreement that the decision not to start airing negative ads was wise.
With just five days between Iowa and New Hampshire, there wasn't enough time for a barrage of negative ads to do much damage to Obama.
Beyond that, experts say, she would have looked desperate and might have made her plight worse.
What many strategists wonder is why the Clinton camp did not go after Obama before Iowa. Better to stop him as he is starting to surge than after a big victory.
Now, they say, she may have no choice. A loss in New Hampshire would force her to put real money behind ads calling Obama's record and experience into question.
6. If McCain wins, who is the Republican front-runner?
There is less consensus among the experts on this than on any other question. "There isn't one," a GOP strategist wrote. "Ask me after Michigan," e-mailed another.
A Republican pollster wrote that it would be Huckabee and McCain, while a Democratic strategist said that, depending on the order of finish and the margins, there could be three co-front-runners by Wednesday: McCain, Huckabee, and either Romney or Giuliani.
The closest thing to a consensus is that a McCain victory would make him the tenuous front-runner. That left it to John Weaver, who was McCain's chief strategist until he and other top officials left the campaign during a shake-up last summer, to offer this e-mailed observation: "John McCain, just as we planned, though we didn't plan on the planners not being there too!"
7. Did New Hampshire penalize voters by scheduling its primary so soon after Iowa's caucuses?
Normally eight days separate the votes in Iowa and New Hampshire, but the calendar contretemps prompted New Hampshire to cut that to five.
The last days of campaigning here have been a marvelous spectacle of energy, enthusiasm and candidate endurance, but the compressed window has provided less time for reflection -- less time for New Hampshire voters to express their traditional independent-minded examination of the candidates.
Iowa and New Hampshire have probably gotten more candidate time and attention than all the other states combined, and their influence remains sizable. But the final-days dash through the Granite State has had a different rhythm than in some past campaigns -- reinforcing a growing consensus that the nominating process badly needs an overhaul.
8. What happens to Giuliani and Huckabee?
Huckabee did not fare as well in the weekend's debates as he did earlier and may be feeling the pressure of being at the front of the pack. But, having won Iowa, he has far less on the line in New Hampshire than Giuliani.
Republican pollster Neil Newhouse said Huckabee stands to benefit from a McCain victory. "Right now in this political calculus, a bad night for Mitt is a good night for Huck," he wrote.
But Whit Ayres, another GOP pollster, said the results could hurt Huckabee. "It will expose his fundamental weakness, which is his inability to expand his coalition beyond social conservatives," he wrote. "But he still could win South Carolina."
Giuliani is the bigger mystery. He has tried a late-state strategy, hoping for a victory in the Jan. 29 Florida primary and a big delegate victory on Feb. 5. He has tried to play down his activity in the earliest states, but he spent considerable money in New Hampshire to little effect.
He must win Florida, but his candidacy could be severely weakened by continued losses. He needs a confused race more than anyone.
Asked to defend the former New York mayor's approach, Giuliani's campaign manager put it this way: "We have an unconventional strategy that refuses to bow to conventional wisdom. . . . We have never had a five-way race with two dozen states holding elections in a month. Our unconventional strategy will lead to the most delegates and the nomination."
View all comments that have been posted about this article.