Poor Michigan

Watching Senator Levin today talk about how all the problems the Democrats are having with counting delegates is New Hampshire's fault, makes me want to crack out my violin. Republicans don't seem to be having these problems; is New Hampshire just out to get MI Democrats?

I understand that many see NH's first in the nation status as unfair, there is an element to truth to that. However, NH and its citizens take their role seriously. New Hampshirites go to see numerous candidates and question them about their positions. NH isn't first because it's the status quo, their first because they fight for it. It isn't as some suggest a simple desire for the revenue that it brings in or the attention that the state garners. Trust me you haven't met many New Englanders if you think that this is just attention seeking behavior. I do wish the town hall forums that NH features could be seen by more than just the few people in the first voting states. However, this is a unique process that is one of the few things in politics not influenced by money and power. New Hampshirites vote for the candidates who answer their questions. We aren't following the money race, or the pundit's critiques we're choosing a candidate based on direct contact and substantive issue. While the Democrats may not appreciate this, New Hampshirites do and will not sit back and accept a denegration of the system that they contribute to in such a unique way.

McCain Wins New Hampshire!

McCAIN WINS!

Sen. John McCain claimed his second New Hampshire primary victory last night, denying Mitt Romney a comeback in his back yard.

In a victory speech in Nashua, McCain told a cheering crowd that while he was no kid, "Tonight, we sure showed 'em what a comeback looks like."

Before flying to Michigan this morning, Sen. John McCain displayed the front page of today's Union Leader. Many political observers last night said the statewide daily's editorial page support of McCain was a key to his win.

From the Union Leader

More New Hampshire Newspapers Endorse McCain

Senator McCain is leading the pack with New Hampshire Newspaper Endorsements. First, the Union Leader endorsement, now the Salmon Press endorses Senator McCain stating he could "become among our greatest presidents". Salmon Press publishes a number of local papers around the state, here is their endorsement...

"Salmon Press (NH): New Hampshire’s Salmon Press Endorses Sen. John McCain

Abraham Lincoln once observed that before you can become a statesman you have to get elected.

U.S. Sen. John McCain has the right stuff to become a statesman, indeed to become among our greatest presidents, but standing in his way is the prickly business of having to get elected. Once considered the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party, his presidential campaign stumbled in the early going — in part because he refused to bend his principles — but is now gaining some momentum. We hope that momentum continues, for in our judgment John McCain towers over his political rivals and is our unwavering choice in New Hampshire’s Republican presidential primary next month.

Sen. McCain is a man of great depth and character. He has demonstrated an enormous capacity for growth over his political career and his military record is truly heroic — in stark contrast to those of his opponents. As a congressman and senator from Arizona he has exhibited the ability to attract both sides of the political aisle. And yet he is a conservative in the best sense of the word: principled, unwilling to cave for political gain and an unbowed enemy of wasteful spending. His experience in foreign affairs and in military issues is unmatched in the field.

Sen. McCain’s support in Iowa is anemic, mostly because he correctly refuses to support the ludicrous ethanol subsidies currently enjoyed by Iowa farmers. Indeed, it is hard to imagine him stooping to the kind of pandering that has marked the candidacies of other Republican suitors, particularly that of Gov. Mitt Romney.

New Hampshire occupies a unique position in American politics. It is the only state in which presidential campaigns are run at the retail level, and because that is so, New Hampshire voters have exerted an enormous and historical influence over those who would occupy the White House.

Sen. McCain needs New Hampshire now. If he can win or show well here, his candidacy will not only survive but will thrive as Republicans finally grasp that they have a giant among them, one, who alone among Republicans, can defeat the Democratic nominee in what looms as a Democratic year.

Salmon Press publishes 11 newspapers in New Hampshire – The Littleton Courier, Coos County Democrat, The Berlin Reporter, The Granite State News, Carroll County Independent, Meredith News, Record Enterprise, Winnisquam Echo, Gilford Steamer, Baysider, and The Mountain Ear. "

http://www.salmonpress.com/118241.112113body.lasso

John McCain Character Factor

Reprinted from the New York Times - http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/13/opinion/13brooks.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

November 13, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
The Character Factor
By DAVID BROOKS
Rochester, N.H.

About six months ago, I was having lunch with a political consultant and we were having a smart-alecky conversation about the presidential race. All of sudden, my friend interrupted the flow of gossip and said: “You know, there’s really only one great man running for president this year, and that’s McCain.”

The comment cut through the way we pundits normally talk about presidential candidates. We tend to view them like products and base our verdicts on their market share at the moment. We don’t so much evaluate their character; we analyze how effectively they are manipulating their image to appeal to voters, and in this way we buy into the artificiality of modern campaigning.

My friend’s remark pierced all that, and it had the added weight of truth.

Eight years ago, it was fashionable for us media types to wax rapturously about McCain. That vogue has passed, but I’m afraid my views are unchanged. I have seen McCain when his campaign was imploding, and now again when he’s rising in the polls. I have seen him shooting craps and negotiating in the Senate. I have seen him leading delegations like a statesman and bickering with his old Hanoi Hilton prison-mate Bud Day like a crotchety old lady.

And I can tell you there is nobody in politics remotely like him.

The first thing that still strikes one about McCain is his energy. In his book, “The Nightingale’s Song,” Robert Timberg runs through primal force metaphors to describe the young McCain. “Being on liberty with John McCain was like being in a train wreck,” Timberg wrote.

Prison in Vietnam gave him self-respect and a cause greater than himself, but it didn’t diminish his dynamism. His office in the Senate isn’t tucked away in a tranquil corner of his suite; it’s right in the vortex, and it’s always empty because he’s walking around. Campaigning last weekend in New Hampshire, he was his old restless self, never alone, craving contact, conversation and fun.

Timberg wrote that McCain fought against the system at the Naval Academy as if it were some hostile organism, “as if any compromise meant surrendering a part of himself that he might never retrieve.”

The years and the Senate have smoothed some of his rebelliousness, but he still fights a daily battle against the soul-destroying forms of modern politics.

If you cover him for a day, you’d better bring 2,500 questions because in the hours he spends with journalists, you will run through all of them. Last Saturday, we talked about Pervez Musharraf’s asceticism and Ted Williams’s hitting philosophy, the Korean War and Hispanic voting patterns.

He analyzed the debates he won and the times he was wooden. He talked about his failures as a fund-raiser and said he’d like to pick a running mate with formal economics training because he’s weak in that area. He won’t tell you everything, but there will never be a moment as the hours stretch by when you feel that he is spinning you, lying to himself or insulting your intelligence.

Telling the truth is a skill. Those who don’t do it habitually lose the ability, but McCain is well-practiced and has the capacity to face unpleasant truths. While other conservatives failed to see how corporations were insinuating themselves into their movement, McCain went after Boeing contracts. While others failed to see the rising tide of corruption around them, McCain led the charge against Jack Abramoff. While others ignored the spending binge, McCain was among the fiscal hawks.

There have been occasions when McCain compromised his principles for political gain, but he was so bad at it that it always backfired. More often, he is driven by an ancient sense of honor, which is different from fame and consists of the desire to be worthy of the esteem of posterity.

Other Republicans used to accuse him of kissing up to the news media. But when the Iraq war was at its worst, and other candidates were hiding in the grass waiting to see how things would turn out, McCain championed the surge, which the major Republican candidates now celebrate.

He did it knowing that it would cost him his media-darling status and probably the presidency. But for years he had hated the way the war was being fought. And when the opportunity to change it came, the only honorable course was to try.

And now he pushes ahead, building momentum, but desperately needing a miracle win in New Hampshire. Everyone will make their own political choices, and you might plausibly argue that the qualities John McCain possesses are not the ones the country now requires. But character is destiny, and you will never persuade me that he is not among the finest of men.

That human point seemed worth remembering, even amid the layers of campaign pretense.

He's Back!

Senator McCain is planning to return to New Hampshire at the end of this week, and the end of next week, as well as another visit towards the end of the month. More details to follow...