Jews and Politics: Previewing New Hampshire Primary

What: The New Hampshire primary. When: January 10, 2012. Analysis: The Iowa caucuses turned out to have quite a dramatic finish, with a mere eight votes separating the first place Mitt Romney and second place Rick Santorum. Ron Paul finished a disappointed third, followed by Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, John Huntsman and Michelle Bachmann. Following her last place finish, Bachmann dropped out of the race, leaving only six GOP candidates left to compete in New Hampshire.

2008 election results:

REPUBLICANS:
John McCain– 37%
Mitt Romney– 31%
Mike Huckabee– 11%
Rudy Giuliani– 9%
Ron Paul– 8%

DEMOCRATS:
Hillary Clinton– 39%
Barack Obama– 36%
John Edwards– 17%
Bill Richardson– 5%

The Candidates: Here’s a rundown of the Republican candidates that will be on the ballot for the New Hampshire primary, and what it will take for them to win.

Mitt Romney: The former Governor of neighboring Massachusetts, has had his sights set on the New Hampshire primary for quite some time. He’s consistently polled in the high thirties to low forties in a state that favors more moderate Republican candidates, with an open primary system that allows Independents to vote as well. His eight vote victory over Santorum in Iowa can only help him in New Hampshire, but the real question is wether or not he’ll be able to win the South Carolina primary, a state that favors more conservative candidates, and has a solid track-record of picking the eventual GOP nominee. Elections are all about momentum, which means the bigger his margin of victory is Tuesday night, the better his chances are of winning the first-in-the-nation southern primary at the end of the month.

Rick Santorum: After his shocking virtual first place finish in the Iowa caucuses (where he lost to Romney by only 8 votes), Santorum has effectively overtaken Newt Gingrich as the conservative alternative to Romney. His campaign received quite a boost from his Iowa shocker in both fundraising and media exposure, and has also landed him a much more prominent role in the debates. New Hampshire’s moderate electorate doesn’t exactly suit Santorum’s strong conservative social record, which means he was never really expected to win New Hampshire, so as long as he does well in the primary and finishes ahead of Gingrich, he’ll be able to take much of his Iowa momentum into South Carolina where he’ll have a chance to become the new national conservative leader.

Ron Paul: Iowa was his best shot at winning, and he failed to do so. He has the money and support to stick around for a while, so don’t expect him to drop out anytime soon. His libertarian domestic policies and non-interventionist foreign policies have attracted a loyal young following that will give him a good shot at second or third place. He has absolutely zero chance of winning the Republican nomination, and the only real question with him is wether or not he’ll make a third party run in the November election.

Newt Gingrich: Regardless of how his Presidential campaign ends up, he has successfully revived his seemingly dead political career, and turned himself into a powerful political force that has to be reckoned with. He has consistently stood out at the debates as a highly intellectual individual with original ideas who won’t put up with the mainstream media’s partisan nonsense. He has enough money and support to stay in the race through the Florida primary at the end of the month, but he faces the difficult task of competing with the surging Santorum for the conservative voters in New Hampshire and more importantly South Carolina. If he finishes ahead of Santorum in New Hampshire, it will give him some much needed momentum going into South Carolina, but if ends up in last place (not including Perry) in NH, it will cement the notion in many people’s minds, that the only reason he stayed in the race after his fourth place Iowa finish, was to maintain a platform with which he can get even with Romney for all the negative ads he ran against him.

Jon Huntsman: Of all the candidates, he has the most at-stake in this primary. After skipping the Iowa caucuses to focus completely on campaigning in New Hampshire, Huntsman has to hope that there’s a big turnout of Independents and Democrats to give his campaign a much needed boost. His poll numbers have started to rise in the latest polls conducted in the last few days, but it’s highly unlikely that he’ll be able to pull off a near-tie for first place with Romney like Santorum did in Iowa. The best he could hope for at this point in time, is a top three finish, wether or not that will be enough for him to stay in the race is yet to be seen. In the end of the day, his biggest liability with Republican voters is that he worked for President Obama the past few years as the Ambassador to China, not exactly the pedigree GOP voters are looking for in a candidate to take on Obama this November.

Rick Perry: He shocked the political world (and perhaps himself) by staying in the race after his second to last finish in Iowa. Apparently, he decided to give his once-thriving but now-dormant campaign one last chance for revival in South Carolina’s first in the south primary. He has officially decided to skip the New Hampshire primary and instead focus completely on the South Carolina primary at the end of the month.

Prediction: There’s no need to worry about another suspense filled eight vote victory, since Romney will easily win this primary by at least 10%. The only other sure thing is a last place finish by Perry who isn’t officially competing in this primary. That leaves it to Paul, Santorum, Huntsman, and Gingrich to fight over the 2-5 slots.