BEFORE SHE cast her ballot at Webster Elementary School yesterday morning, Pat Howard, a 66-year-old retired attorney and Democrat, heralded the news from Dixville Notch as a good omen.
The tiny hamlet on the Canadian border votes first in the country’s first presidential primary. Nine registered voters braved freezing temperatures to show up at midnight. And president Barack Obama won.
Because all the action is in the Republican ring, people forget Democrats, too, are holding primaries, although Obama’s nomination is not in question.
“Those three Democrats didn’t have to get up in the night and go out in freezing weather to show support for Obama,” Howard said. “But they did, and so am I. A lot of Republicans are kowtowing to the religious right, and I don’t like that.”
In Dixville Notch, the frontrunner Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman won two votes each; Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul received one vote each.
On Sunday and Monday, Romney came under unprecedented attack by all his rivals, except the self-described "Jesus candidate" Rick Santorum, for his venture-capitalist past. Winning Our Future, a Super PAC that supports Gingrich, released the trailer to When Mitt Romney came to Town,a half-hour documentary likely to stir up more trouble for Romney.
Nothing could make the White House happier than to see Republicans attacking Republicans for making money.
The attacks were probably too late in the campaign to harm Romney in New Hampshire, but could damage his chances down the line.
At the school polling station, Romney supporters were untroubled by the frontrunner’s statement on Monday that “I like being able to fire people”. Rick Perry’s campaign website offered the quote, repeated over and over in Romney’s voice, as a telephone ring tone. Romney protested that the quote was taken out of context – he was talking about inefficient healthcare companies – and predicted “free enterprise will be on trial” in the election.
John Cronin said the fact Bain Capital, the company where Romney made his $250 million, fired thousands of people, bothered him “not in the least”. Being able to fire was “what makes good business good”, the 52-year-old said. “In Washington, there’s a huge problem because the federal government never fires anyone.”
Referring to the Gingrich crusade against Romney, Dante Scala, who heads the political science department at the University of New Hampshire, said: “A candidate who goes negative hurts the target, but he also hurts himself. People will say, ‘Who wants to vote for this mean guy?’ ”
Rick Santorum, who lost by eight votes to Romney in Iowa, was largely ignored in the shooting gallery before the January 3rd caucus. Santorum now stands to gain most from the trench warfare between Romney and Gingrich.
With Romney all but certain to win yesterday's primary, "it really feels like the race is for second and third place", said Felice Belman, editor of the Concord Monitornewspaper.
Former Utah governor Jon Huntsman was gaining on Texas congressman Ron Paul in the run-up to the primary. Huntsman finally found his feet at the end of the campaign, excoriating Romney for criticising him for “putting my country first” by serving as Obama’s ambassador to China and repeatedly mentioning his two sons in the navy, a way of pointing out that Romney’s five handsome, rich sons are not in the military.
“The campaign here and everywhere has been about Romney, and whether he will win all the early states and wrap it up quickly, or whether the campaign will be prolonged into the spring,” said Belman. The higher Romney’s score last night, the shorter the campaign; the lower his score, the longer the Republican nominating process.
This election was always going to be about the American economic model, but Gingrich’s portrayal of Romney as a predatory corporate raider brought the theme forward. There are “givers and takers” in the US, said Cronin, the attorney who voted for Romney. “The people that give are dwindling. The takers are growing.”
Kay Mulcahy disagreed. “I could care less how much I pay in taxes,” said the 40-year-old online fashion consultant, who voted for Obama yesterday. “I have four children. We have what we need. People who need help are getting help. I’m very happy.”
Protesters were present at every event in the postcrash primary. “Money out of Politics” said banners adorned with a hybrid blue donkey and red elephant, the symbols of Democrats and Republicans. Demonstrators for planned parenthood carried “Women are watching” placards, to warn candidates who want to restrict abortion and some forms of contraception.
The most unusual candidate was Vermin Supreme, whose name appeared on the same Democratic ballot as Obama’s. Wearing a zebra-striped blazer, multiple neckties and a black rubber galosh upside down on his head, the 62-year-old boasted: “I am the candidate of no hope, no change and bitter disappointment.”