New Hampshire’s fiercely independent voters handed Republican John McCain a staggering victory Tuesday over George W. Bush in the nation’s first presidential primary, while Vice President Al Gore narrowly survived Bill Bradley’s insurgent bid to wrest the Democratic nomination.
The U.S. senator from Arizona, whose reformist, anti-establishment campaign clearly touched a chord among the state’s contrarian voters, trounced the national Republican front-runner by a wide margin, sidetracking Bush’s presidential bid and demonstrating that the Texas governor is not invincible.
“My friends, a wonderful New Hampshire campaign has come to an end, but a great national crusade has just begun,” McCain said. “I promise you I will never forget you and the wisdom I learned here.”
For Gore, the win was not the resounding mandate he was looking for, but he seemed relieved. “During the day today, some people thought this might be like the Super Bowl. They thought that we might fall a yard short. But, let me tell you, this Tennessean is in the end zone and it feels great.”
Bradley needed a strong second place showing to validate his challenge to an incumbent vice president. His close finish to a sitting vice president led him to a concession speech that sounded more like a victory address.
“We have made a remarkable turnaround, but there is still a tough fight ahead. Al Gore’s run a strong race and I congratulate him. But, we’re smarter and better prepared and eager to fight,” said the former senator from New Jersey.
With 98 percent of the Republican precincts counted, McCain had 49 percent to Bush’s 31 percent. Publisher Steve Forbes had 13 percent, Alan Keyes had 6 percent and activist Gary Bauer finished fifth with 1 percent.
Among Democrats, Gore had 52 percent to Bradley’s 47 percent.
McCain’s sizable victory, which stunned the Bush camp, was a reward by Granite State voters for his decision to bypass last week’s Iowa caucuses, which Bush won after campaigning heavily in the state. By contrast, McCain devoted almost all of his time to campaigning in New Hampshire.
“All of a sudden, John McCain was transformed from a political candidate into a kind of folk hero,” said former Sen. Warren Rudman (R-N.H). “People wanted to touch him. They wanted to bring their little children. They wanted his autograph. They wanted to ask him questions . . . and it got bigger and bigger and bigger.”
McCain called the victory “remarkable” and proof that his campaign of political reform is a winning message.
“We have sent a powerful message to Washington that change is coming,” McCain said. He said his victory in New Hampshire has “got to give us momentum” heading into South Carolina and its GOP primary on Feb. 19.
While Bush campaign staffers hadn’t expected McCain’s huge margin of victory, they contend it is an isolated setback on the road to the nomination. The Bush campaign, with a war chest of nearly $70 million, says McCain lacks the financial resources and organizational strength to sustain a protracted challenge to the Texas governor.
“New Hampshire has long been known as a bump in the road for front-runners and this year is no exception,” Bush told a gymnasium filled with somber supporters.
While he congratulated McCain, Bush contrasted his rival’s focus on New Hampshire with his own “national” effort by saying, “Mine is a campaign in every state in America because mine is a message for every American.”
Bush also hinted his strategy would be to wrap himself in the mantle of conservatism in the South Carolina primary. “He came at me from the left here in new Hampshire,” Bush said. “and so it’s going to be a clear race between a more moderate-to-liberal candidate and a conservative candidate in South Carolina.”
McCain had vowed to go on to South Carolina regardless of the outcome Tuesday. But New Hampshire was the pivotal state in extending the contest against Bush.
While the remainder of the GOP field competed in the Jan. 24 Iowa caucuses, McCain had the Granite State to himself until Bush, carrying his caucus victory, arrived last week, along with Forbes, Keyes and Bauer.
By far the most intensive campaigner in New Hampshire, McCain spent more than 70 days in the state since March–more than double the amount of time Bush had been there–and over the weekend held his 114th and final town meeting in Peterborough.
Early in the presidential jockeying last year, Bush held a huge lead in opinion polls in New Hampshire, while McCain barely registered a blip. McCain’s willingness to tirelessly work the state, upholding its tradition of one-on-one retail politics, turned the race around for him.
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McCain’s self-described “wing-it” strategy focused on his background as a Vietnam veteran and five-year prisoner of war to sell a message of leadership while he made his way across the state on his “Straight Talk Express” bus. He pledged reform of a government leveraged by moneyed insiders and vowed to return power to the people.
One survey of voters leaving the polls Tuesday showed McCain’s anti-establishment candidacy was a drawing card among independents. One third of GOP primary voters were registered independents, and they favored McCain by a 3-1 ratio to Bush. But McCain also handily defeated Bush among registered Republicans, by about 10 percentage points.
Although McCain has made some campaign appearances in South Carolina, Bush holds a strong lead in opinion polls there and has the backing of former Gov. Carroll Campbell’s formidable political machinery.
Unlike McCain, who engaged the New Hampshire electorate in his town-hall meetings, Bush remained largely aloof with voters in a state that cherishes face-to-face contact with the candidates. At his largest rally, with more than 1,500 people in attendance, Bush spoke less than five minutes and left the stage after letting a country music band play away.
Bush attempted to turn the debate among Republican voters into a contest over tax cuts in a state with a hallowed tradition of anti-taxation. But this time, in the face of a booming economy, taxes failed to ignite the imagination of the electorate.
Gore and Bradley had been locked in a battle to differentiate themselves in New Hampshire that turned ugly in the last week of campaigning.
Throughout the campaign, Bradley tried to frame himself as a reformer who would introduce a high-minded “new kind of politics” into American life. Specifically, he advocated repairing the nation’s roof while the economic sun shines, proposing health-care plans that would cover most Americans, particularly uninsured children.
Gore relentlessly portrayed himself as a “fighter,” the man who would keep the good economic times going without tapping the non-Social Security budget surplus in ways he considered “risky,” an allusion to Bradley’s plan.
Clashing on campaign finance reform and health-care proposals, the two Democrats savaged each other on who was more supportive of a woman’s right to choose an abortion.
By questioning Gore’s pro-choice credentials, Bradley not only tried to cast doubt on Gore’s veracity but to shore up his own support among women voters, who tended to favor the vice president.
After weeks of fuming, particularly over what Bradley’s campaign called Gore’s distortions of Bradley’s health care proposal, the former U.S. senator from New Jersey finally fought back.
With an aggression that belied his earlier pledge to refrain from negative campaigning, Bradley unleashed a barrage of attacks at the vice president during the last televised presidential debate on Jan. 26.
Calling Gore’s truthfulness into question, Bradley hammered him for his assertion that he had always supported a woman’s right to choose an abortion. In essence, he called Gore a liar with a “tricky” approach, a clear allusion to former president Richard Nixon.
Bradley pointed out that Gore, during his years representing Tennessee in Congress during the late 1970s, voted for measures denying public funding for abortion.
The Bradley campaign also produced letters to constituents, written by Gore in 1983 and 1987, in which he called abortion “arguably, the taking of a human life.”
The question, which became a refrain of the Bradley campaign in the last days before the primary, finally prompted Gore to state that he had changed his mind about abortion and public funding for it, and had become fully supportive of the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision.
The next chance for Democratic candidates to pick up delegates will be on March 7, when 11 states, including such major delegate troves as New York, California and Massachusetts, will hold their primaries.