New Hampshire:
BIG DEAL!
...but at least the press and conservative Republicans lost big!

by Dave "Doctor" Gonzo

February 2, 2000 -- NEW YORK (AmpolNS) -- Let's be real.

In the big scheme of things -- at least insofar as the presidential race is concerned -- the New Hampshire primary is pretty meaningless. Mind you, I mean no disrespect to the voters of New Hampshire -- in fact, my hats off to them for showing way more interest than most Americans in participating in the political process.

But face it -- the results of the primary itself are hardly as important to the final outcome of The Big Race as the press would suggest.

There are a few entertaining and even valuable purposes, however, that this very early primary serves.

One is to provide political junkies a chance to see where the various candidates actually stand on the issues they want to spin -- and which issues they avoid, ignore or cower from. The best pre-primary season debates take place in New Hampshire, and the members of the local print and broadcast press do a better job asking about nuts-and-bolts issues than the cynical and self-important Beltway press corps, who still seem intent on slamming the President's private life -- and trying to convince you that Al Gore is actually tied to it. One wishes, however, that the New Hampshire press mavens would not take their cues on the "key" issues from the leadership of the major parties and ask candidates more probing and even embarrassing questions.

Another purpose the New Hampshire primary serves is to kick off the race for delegates with a monkey wrench or two in the works of the front-runners' races. And the entire contents of the toolbox were a-flyin' last night -- the greatly hyped candidacy of fake "insurgent" Democrat Bill Bradley, who had been leading in some ill-conceived and worthless polls a couple weeks ago, suffered a setback when fake "alpha male" democrat Al Gore beat him by just over four percent the last time I checked.

On the GOP side, McCain trounced Governor Smirk. It didn't even look like a fair fight -- in fact, McCain nearly took over half of the total votes from New Hampshirites who weighed in on the Republican side. A number of pundits wrote or said this morning that the "unexpectedly" (not -- according to our polls!) wide margin of McCain's victory destroys the facade of "inevitability" to George ShrubYa Bush's race to "anointment" as the GOP nominee.

Talk about understatement. But we think it's not the McCain victory that the Bush Baby has to worry about -- and we suspect that the sizable victory by J.J. McCain and the perception that Bush is vulnerable might prove a window for his GOP opponents to intensify their attacks on the near-hundred-million-dollar man.

But there was another major "loser" on the GOP side. The combined percentage of votes backing the triumvirate of "conservative" Republican candidates -- Steve "The Robot" Forbes, Alan "Mosh Pit " Keyes and Gary "Graveyard" Bauer -- was only twenty percent. Twenty percent! Sure, the breed of conservative in New Hampshire is more likely to show an aptitude for critical reasoning that those to be found, say, in the congressional districts of Bob Barr, Dan Burton, or Helen Chenoweth-Whateverhernewnameis, and there are plenty of ditto-prone idiots throughout the nation who vote the "Limbaugh line" no matter what, but the abysmal showing of the Three Stooges of Social Conservatism has much of the Beltway abuzz -- and an awful lot of hard-right think tanks on red alert.

And what was with the press? Exit pollsters for both Democrat candidates had Gore pegged as the clear winner shortly after the polls closed -- but all of the networks declared the race "too close to call" -- then said that Gore "edged" Bradley "by the slimmest of margins."

What the heck gives? In any given political season, four percent is not exactly uncommon, nor is it a "slim margin". Half a percent -- that's slim. Four -- fuhgeddaboudit.

It just looks like another case of the press pounding on Gore. After all, it's no secret that the press corps hates the man, and was caught en masse acting like a bunch of giggly, mean-spirited high school kids mocking Gore in their press room during an early New Hampshire debate -- an incident reported by a number of outlets outside the big corporate media herd, including this site and The Daily Howler.

Which brings me to another reason I enjoy the New Hampshire primary -- it brings me no end of joy to see a lot of these loudmouth "journalists" standing outside polling stations in New Hampshire on Primary Day looking cold and uncomfortable, trying their level best to suppress their discomfort and cope with the brisk weather, what they no doubt see as lousy accommodations, and frustration at the lack of trendy eateries.

Let 'em suffer, I say. A little penance will do them some good. Especially since, for all the coverage it got, the New Hampshire primary is not the big deal they make it out to be -- and they know it.

'Nuff said.