James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
The big question now is the margin. If it is less than five the Clintons will spin a comeback narrative, if it is double digits for Obama then the meltdown storyline will continue. UPDATE: Bad info, sorry. Hillary Clinton pulled off a remarkable comeback victory which I’ll try and explain in a minute.
This place has just errupted with the news that the networks have called New Hampshire for McCain. Considering how quickly this has been called, McCain must have won by a comfortable margin suggesting that he should have enough momentum to take Michigan. Also worth noting that the Democratic race has yet to be called, implying
But it’s all still to play for, says James Forsyth. Senator Clinton’s astonishing comeback does not mean that Obama is finished by any means -— and John McCain has injected much-needed energy into the Republican primaries, too Hillary Clinton has now done something that her husband never managed: she has won a contested New Hampshire
Extra Democratic ballots are needed in a string of towns, this is great news for Obama—who won in Iowa by bringing new people into the caucuses—and bad for Hillary Clinton. A double-digit loss would be a hammer blow to her campaign and if the margin climbs to around 15 points we would be well into
The post-mortems are already beginning on the Clinton campaign as everyone here is expecting a big Obama win tonight; the spin from her side is that if they can keep the margin in single figures then it will be a good night for them. In trying to understand why Hillary’s star has fallen so far
The line of cars trying to get into the Clinton event tonight must have been more than a couple of miles long and her supporters were noisy, clearly determined that if she is to go down here she will do so with dignity. Encouragingly for her campaign, her emotional moment earlier in the day is
John McCain and Mitt Romney have both been criss-crossing the Granite state in one last quest for votes. McCain’s Straight Talk Express pulled a decent, but far from spectacular, crowd in Manchester earlier. Mitt Romney filled a school hall in Bedford. There’s a bond between McCain and New Hampshire voters, as one undecided voter (she’s
Hillary Clinton has been trying to raise doubts about Barack Obama by talking about the limits of hope. Obama has counter-punched by pointing out that many of the greatest advances in American history were due to hope and that hope is an essential American quality; one that inspired the Colonists in 1776, the abolitionists and
A whole slew of polls have now confirmed that Obama is surging ahead of Hillary here in New Hampshire. To compound the problem for the Clinton camp, there is now a full media feeding frenzy. Bill’s comment that “We can’t be a new story, I’m sorry. I can’t make her younger, taller, male” became the
Rudy Giuliani’s sixth place finish in Iowa could be shrugged off as he had never really put that much effort into the state and as Iowa with its socially conservative Republican base was never going to be hospitable territory for a thrice-married, socially liberal former New York Mayor. But New Hampshire with its more small
Voting in New Hampshire starts in 21 hours time and unless something dramatic happens between now and then Barack Obama will win big. If he does, the nomination will be his barring a game-changing error from him or some event—say a confrontation between US and Iranian ships in the Straits of Hormuz turning hot—redefining the
The latest New Hampshire polls suggest that Obama is going to blow Clinton away here. He leads by 13 in the Gallup poll and is 10 ahead in the CNN/WMUR poll. These polls match the mood on the ground where the buzz around the Obama events is the talk of the trail. (The photo gives you
Tonight, the Republican presidential contenders—minus Ron Paul and Duncan Hunter—hold another televised debate here in New Hampshire. Last night, John McCain, Fred Thompson, Mike Huckabee and Rudy Giuliani all piled on to Mitt Romney. In the spin room afterwards, their surrogates continued to unload on the former Massachusetts governor and so the big question tonight
After Hillary’s rally this morning, we drove out to Mike Huckabee’s chowder-fest in the small town of Wyndham. The whole event was a testament to what a versatile politician Huckabee is. He won in Iowa by being, as his adverts controversially called him, a “Christian leader” but here in New Hampshire, where the evangelical population
Hillary Clinton’s new strategy was evident at her canvas kick off this morning. She kept stressing how she, unlike Obama, had actually delivered change. She rattled off—Gordon Brown style—the numbers of New Hampshire children, national guard members and veterans she had ‘delivered’ health care to. However, it is hard to see this line of attack
I’m at a Hillary “canvas kick off” in Manchester, New Hampshire this morning and the Hillary supporters are out in force making more noise than is entirely decent at this time in the morning in an attempt to inject some energy into her flagging campaign. With less than 48 hours until voting starts here, Hillary needs
John McCain and Barack Obama won tonight’s debates here in New Hampshire not because of what they did but because of what others did for them. The mass Republican assault on Mitt Romney, which McCain joined in, ensured that McCain’s chief rival in the state left the debate bloodied and bruised. At this point, the
I’m a little late to the party here as I was in the spin room listening to the surrogates for the Republican candidates. So, I’ll come back to the foreign policy section after the debate. The first thing to notice is that John Edwards is riding to Obama’s defence as Hillary tries to attack him.
I’m sitting in the press filing centre at Saint Anselm College where the leading Republican and Democratic presidential candidates are about to hold back to back debates. The stakes are huge—this is Hillary Clinton’s last best chance to halt the Obama bandwagon before the primary on Tuesday. While on the Republican side, Mitt Romney can’t
After the Obama rally, I headed up to Peterborough for a John McCain town hall. The population of the town is 6,000 yet McCain had 600 at his event with the police blocking more people from entering. It is awesome, in the proper sense of the word, how seriously New Hampshire primary voters take their
