Filed under: Other issues, Politics

There’s an old political adage that goes, “Regarding the nomination process, Republicans fall in line, Democrats fall in love.” Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary provided ample evidence of the above, for each party.
Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-IL) strong showing instantaneously catapults him to formidable contender status in the Democratic race. His performance also suggests — and we won’t know this empirically until survey research has been analyzed — that he has expanded the electorate. Obama increased voter turnout particularly, and unexpectedly, among voters ages 18-21. This age group has had the lowest turnout rate of any age group in primaries and presidential elections since 1952 when political scientists began keeping statistics.

Obama’s appeal among independents was also high, and — also troubling for the campaign of Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) — his appeal among Democratic Party-affiliated voters was much stronger than expected. Furthermore, African-American voters — although not a major factor in New Hampshire — now appear to be shifting decidedly in his direction nationally, a big change from the previously overwhelming support they gave to Clinton as late as this summer. As a result of the latter, look for the Clinton camp to face a markedly tougher fight in the South Carolina primary, which is the next hurdle, along with Nevada, before Tsunami Tuesday (formerly called Super Tuesday), on February 5.

Continue reading Obama’s New Hampshire strength highlights Clinton’s vulnerablity

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 9th, 2008 at 4:07 pm and is filed under Stocks Money News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.