2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumKilling a bullshit Clinton meme: Bernie Sanders Is No Favorite Son
Hillary Clintons campaign says that shes losing New Hampshire because Bernie Sanders, being from neighboring Vermont, is a favorite son in the state. But according to reporters and editors at four of the states top news outlets, thats a load of crock and would make most New Hampshire stomachs turn. In fact, most New Hampshirites probably didnt know who Bernie Sanders was until he launched his presidential campaign. And bobcat-killing and the opiate epidemic are more likely to be at the top of their list of concerns than, say, immigration.
Those are just a few of things the pundits and candidates are getting wrong about New Hampshire as we head into its first-in-the-nation primary on Tuesday. In a roundtable interview moderated by Politicos senior politics editor Charlie Mahtesian, five of the journalists who follow New Hampshire politics most closely revealed more about what's really going on on-the-ground in the Granite State and what we in Washington are missing.
Charlie Mahtesian, Politico: One of the things weve heard is a lockstep message coming out of the Clinton campthis idea that Hillary Clintons not going to do that well because its Bernies backyard. Theyre downplaying expectations since shes trailing in the polls. My question, though, is how well does New Hampshire actually know Bernie? Is it the case where hes the third senator from New Hampshire, as Clinton would like to believe? Is he known in the Connecticut River Valley, known in southern New Hampshire?
Roger Carroll, Nashua Telegraph: I was watching CBS news the other night, there was a woman doing standup in front of a bridge in Manchester. She said that Sanders is practically a favorite son here in New Hampshire. You know what, that is a load of crock. Theres no other way tothat is, I mean, Im sitting there, you know how a dog turns its head when it doesnt quite get something? [Sighs deeply].
Look. People in the Connecticut River Valley knew who he was. They knew who he was when he was mayor of Burlington, because Channel 3 has a really strong signal that beams in. But you go 15 miles to the east and nobody knew who he was, he was 50 points behind at this time last year. So, as Colonel Potter from MASH used to say: Horse hockey!
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http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/02/new-hampshire-primary-political-reporters-213604
Tom Rinaldo
(22,911 posts)She's campaigned in and won in New Hampshire before, something Bernie never did. Somehow I don't think the media penetration of Channel 3 from Burlington offsets all of that
cali
(114,904 posts)there's not a lot of love between the two states.