The Age of Presidential Candidates

[StevieM]

49. Agreed about New Hampshire. People would later make fun of him for saying

Last edited Wed Dec 5, 2018, 05:27 PM - Edit history (1)

that he was the Comeback Kid after he lost, but people at the time understood what he meant. He may not have beaten Tsongas, but he destroyed Bob Kerrey. There had been a lot of talk that Kerrey would start surging in New Hampshire and ultimately become one of two finalists, along with Paul Tsongas.

There was widespread belief that Tsongas could never win the nomination and that whoever became his fellow finalist would go on to win the Democratic nomination.

Also, with Tom Harkin running the Iowa Caucuses were not competitive that year. And so the two finalist out of New Hampshire were going to look like very strong candidates, even if one of them did not win the Iowa caucuses. Historically, the two finalists had been the winners of Iowa and Hew Hampshire.

In 1984 Gary Hart took second to Walter Mondale in Iowa, and then won NH, with Mondale coming in second. They went on to compete for the nomination. In 1988 Dukakis took a top 3 showing in Iowa, with Richard Gephardt winning, and then won New Hampshire, with Gephardt coming in second. Senator Paul Simon of Illinois took 2nd in Iowa, third in New Hampshire, and then faded. Al Gore and Jesse Jackson had what you might call a late-state strategy. It didn't get them nominated, although they certainly did better with it than Rudy Guiliani did in 2008. Of course, people forget that Guiliani's late-state strategy was born of neccesity when he collapsed in NH, IA and SC.

Taking Iowa out of the equation helped Clinton a lot. If Harkin hadn't been running then Bob Kerrey might have won Iowa. Even if Clinton had taken second ahead of Paul Tsongas--which is not at all clear--that still probably would have propelled Kerrey to a second place finish in New Hampshire. That would have left Clinton pursuing Al Gore's strategy from 1988 in which he hoped to win big in the south and then make a late surge for the nomination. It didn't work for Gore. Of course, Clinton was in better financial circumstances in 1992 then Gore had been in, while Kerrey was in worse financial circumstances than Dukakis had been in.