CE Week #9: “It’s Independents’ Day”
In New Hampshire even Ron Paul could have a shot.
By Howard Fineman
NEWSWEEK
Updated: 2:07 PM ET Oct 20, 2007
Whatever Hollywood says a presidential candidate is supposed to look like, Ron Paul isn’t it. At 72, wearing mall-walking shoes and an inquisitive smile, he looks like a retired obstetrician, which he is. His platform is hardly from central casting, either. He not only wants U.S. troops home from Iraq, he wants them home from the rest of the planet. He wants to abolish an alphabet of federal agencies and the income tax, dismantle the Patriot Act, reconnect the dollar to the price of gold, decriminalize prostitution and call an end to the drug war. Seated in the House Speaker’s Lobby, he speaks matter-of-factly, like a doctor describing an easy delivery. “This is my freedom message,” says the Texas representative. “People have to be left alone.”
Much of the world dismisses Paul as a libertarian crank. But mainstream candidates from Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney have good reason to watch him. That reason’s called the New Hampshire primary. Always unpredictable—there’s not even a date set for it yet—the primary is more mysterious now because a record 44 percent of voters have registered “undeclared.” Suspicious of established politics, with an antiwar sentiment stretching back to Vietnam, they decide at the last minute. Since they can vote in either party’s race, their migrations choose the outcome in both. In 2000, two thirds asked for GOP ballots, boosting John McCain and dooming Bill Bradley, who was going after the same voters.
This time, Obama, Giuliani and Mc Cain are the big names fishing in the sea of independents. But conditions have changed: it’s expected that two thirds of those voters will take part in the Democratic contest, which could be Obama’s main, or last, chance. His yearning to change a “broken political system” is a good hook, but only if he can convince voters he has the guts and skill to do it. He has work to do: a recent Marist College poll shows Clinton leading him among independents 38 to 29 percent. A hot Democratic race would be bad for McCain and Giuliani, whose appeal rests in part on their perceived distance from GOP orthodoxy. The arithmetic of the undeclared is one reason Romney is sprinting to the right and why Mike Huckabee is getting a look in the state.
As George W. Bush’s Republican coalition falls apart, its rougher edges become more visible and Paul’s small-government, isolationist message gets heard. Many New Hampshirites see the state’s Live Free or Die motto as an article of faith, and they blame mushrooming federal deficits as much on the GOP as on the Democrats. “Independents are so mad about spending they can’t see straight,” says Jennifer Donahue of Saint Anselm College in Manchester. These voters loathe the war in Iraq, too. “They are as antiwar as anyone here, maybe more so,” she says.
For now, Paul is a blip on New Hampshire’s radar; in a recent poll, he stood at 5 percent among independents. But that could change. He’s banked more than $5 million, recently raised more in the state than most other candidates, has a huge Web presence and just bought $1.1 million in New Hampshire TV ads. His staff is inexperienced, but smart. Andy Smith, a pollster at University of New Hampshire, says Paul could get 10 to 20 percent of the vote in the GOP race. That would be a dramatic story, but maybe not one most Republicans would want to read.
URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/57350
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This was one of the better articles I have read. I like how it starts out and talks about pretty much a crazy guy that would most likely ruin our country could win the New Hampshire primary because it is so unpredictable. Ron Paul will not win the election that is for sure, but as the article says he could change the results dramatically. He could get enough votes to make it so that the winner might only get 43% of the votes in the primary. I have a few questions about some definitions? What is a GOP? Also, what is mushrooming? If someone replies to this article you should defiantly tell me those two definitions. Then the article starts talking about how 44% of the voting population was registered as undeclared. But honestly, we all know that Ron Paul will not win. Finally the article gets back into how Ron Paul could actually win the election. He could use his $1.1 million in television. ads in the state of New Hampshire, or will it be with the money he raised, and he raised the most out of any candidate. My final statement is Ron Paul will not win the election in New Hampshire.
this article is really interesting. it is interesting that Paul is willing to spend such a large sum of money on a campaign that he won’t win and it is interesting on the amount of people that will lose their vote voting for him. his views are very radical and unrealistic but him and i guess many people in New Hampshire feel these changes are needed for a better country. i’m not scared at all about his shot for presidency because when it gets to the primary he will probably get dominated. it also suprises me that 44% of the people that are registered are undecided. this is a great example of how the american people are slowly moving towards a middle ground between the two party’s. this movement ends up easily eliminating hukabee and kucinich. but for some reason many people are voting for Ron Paul. even if he SOMEHOW won New Hampshire i highly doubt that the majority of the rest of the states will lean his way also. there is definitly something in the water over there in New Hampshire.
This article brings up some points that I had not previously known about Ron Paul. I agree with some of them but also disagree with just as many. I disagree that we should bring home all our troops from all over the world, I think that we should at least leave some stationed in key areas. I do agree with Ron Paul though that we should stop the drug war, but I don’t see how he can realistically accomplish an end to the drug war. It is very interesting to me that the United States has become more Independent. I think that it is a very good thing. I don’t think that our party system is a good thing; I think that it limits our government to two basic mainstream views. I think that with more people becoming independents that the parties could start to dissolve. I know that if this happened it would probably not be in my lifetime, but I do feel that it would be for the betterment of our nation because it would allow more people to have a realistic view of getting elected in any major election. Overall, the shift towards independents will make our nation stronger.