Live Blogging From New Hampshire Primary -- By Rick Klein

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Live Blogging From New Hampshire Primary -- By Rick Klein

January 08, 2008 3:01 PM

10:47 pm: ABC News projects that Clinton will win the NH Democratic Primary; Obama will be second.

That's all for tonight -- read The Note tomorrow for a full recap and analysis and a look ahead to what comes next.

10:38 pm: Let's just pause to reflect -- what a night. Incredible stuff. Nobody I know saw this coming. Nobody.

10:34 pm: So ABC is not calling this yet, BUT -- once again, HUGE night for Clinton no matter what happens from here on out. This -- if it holds -- changes absolutely everything.

10:32 pm: FLASH -- AP is calling the race for Hillary Clinton. ABC is NOT.

10:32 pm: So what does JOhn Edwards do next? His people would have loved a second place finish -- not in the cards.

10:27 pm: Some notes from ABC's Karen Travers: Outstanding are Hampton, Derry, Hanover, and Merrimack. Hanover is University of New Hampshire -- so you might think that's big for the college vote -- but UNH isn't in session again until 1/22. The other college towns went for Obama, but not in landslides. Manchester is going Hillary -- not surprising. But generally speaking, the cities still outstanding do have a big enough chunk of independents to come through for Obama.

9:54 pm: VERY important point. Many of the towns we're waiting on are college towns. Should Hillary Clinton give a speech before the results are in -- in case they take a turn for the worse?

9:48 pm: From ABC's Kate Snow: The crowd here just started chanting "hillary! Hillary!" And then switched to "comeback kid!" "Comeback kid!" (How did we know we'd hear that line before the night was over?)

9:45 pm: Sen. Clinton definitely is reclaiming female voters in New Hampshire. And we learn another lesson about the power (and limitations) of momentum.

9:37 pm: Another possibility: Did the independents think Obama was fine, so they thought they could vote for McCain?

9:32 pm: Thoughts on how she's pulling this off? Did the emotional incident help? Did people lie to pollsters? (Read David Kuo's take on that.) Did Bill drag her over the finish line? (Or are the remaining towns going to be so overwhelmingly Obama that we're way off base here?)

9:26 pm: It is now clear that Hillary Clinton will win even if she loses. Incredible. All of that ebullience on the Obama side has shifted to the Clinton side within the last 80 minutes or so. Raw vote with 40 percent of precincts reporting is Clinton 39, Obama 36.

9:17 pm: ABC's Kate Snow just reported that Clinton's ballroom is only half full. Love that detail! They weren't counting on much tonight...

9:15 pm: Tonight's story so far is John McCain. The other story is that Clinton is still in the running more than an hour after the polls closed. They were so worried about a loss that they put word out about a campaign shakeup even before the voting ended in New Hampshire. Now she can very well claim to have reclaimed a measure of momentum.

9:13 pm: Every passing moment is like a dream over at Camp Clinton. The reports of her demise... And the remarkable thing is the stability in the polls over the last 24-48 hours -- strongly suggesting an Obama win that would approach double digits. It becomes increasingly less likely that anything like that will happen.

9 pm: Huckabee has to be happy with his finish if he ends up in third place, don't you think? Can't imagine a much better finish for him in a state like this.

8:47 pm: He did it again -- two silvers, one gold. His gold was in Wyoming -- yes, Wyoming. That's like winning the Pioneer Valley regional triathlon, not the Olympics.

8:46 pm: Brando -- if Obama outright loses, it's huge for Clinton -- she's back in the game, ready for action, etc etc. But the likely scenario, a narrow Obama win, will also be a chance for Clinton to change the discussion after a rough stretch. What it means is we have a contest on our hands.

8:46 pm: Romney ready to speak...

8:44 pm: As we wait for Democratic numbers, ABC's Kate Snow says she asked Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson how he feels so far. Answer: "thrilled!!!!!" (Yes five exclamation points.)

Others are holding back, but . . . can a "Comeback Clinton" speech be far off?

8:42 pm: Romney called McCain to congratulate him at 8:20, ABC's John Berman reports. Must have been a fun phone call. I can almost see the smile on McCain's face as he humbly accepted those sentiments.

8:33 pm: Romney set to speak in 15 minutes, we're hearing. Does he award himself another silver? (And does he seem convincing when he does it?)

8:30 pm: Not to crow (OK, I am), but ABC was the first to call the Republican race, beating CNN by four minutes.

8:29 pm: But I would add -- for the Republicans, this is three states down, and three different winners. And there are still five GOP candidates who have plausible shots at the nomination.

8:26 pm: Handy Andy -- thanks for signing on, as always. But Mitt's "big win" in Wyoming? That's some Romney flavored Kool-aid in your bottle, there. He won Wyoming because nobody else bothered to pay attention to the least-populous state in the nation. And he had enough sons to rotate through on a fairly regular basis.

8:22 pm: From ABC's Gary Langer: "Moderates, independents and late deciders were crucial for McCain, and he was boosted by a large advantage on personal qualities of leadership, experience and straight-talking. Moderates (just over a third of voters) went overwhelmingly for McCain, 43-26 percent; he also won liberal Republicans, who are somewhat less rare in New Hampshire than elsewhere (12 percent of voters). Among conservatives, by contrast Romney won, by 37-30 percent. (Conservatives were the much larger group, 54 percent of all voters.)"

This is the key sentence: "McCain won independents by 11 points over Romney, 38-27 percent, while they split mainline Republicans about evenly, 34-33."

8:18 pm: Meanwhile, in the land of the Democrats, hunker down with some popcorn or something -- this could be a while. The later it goes, the better it is for Clinton, no?

8:15 pm: This is odd, but Rudy is speaking without knowing that McCain has been called the winner. He tried to go out early, but he wasn't early enough. "We've got a lot of work to do," he says. (Wait -- you think?) And why do candidates still list the states they plan to compete in, post-Howard Dean?

8:14 pm: Per ABC's John Berman, when asked what made the difference, one ROMNEY adviser said..."Authenticity." Right now they are saying, "it is on to Michigan for round 3."

8:11 pm: Lots of time to reflect on this in the days and hours to come, but how does the Romney campaign spin this? On to Michigan? Is that enough? They're celebrating in Nashua, at the McCain party, ABC's Ron Claiborne reports.

8:10 pm: What ever else happens tonight -- take a moment to reflect on this. What a comeback. What a disappointment to Mitt Romney. And we're hearing Rudy's getting his concession speech out of the way early, as in two minutes from now...

8:09 pm BIG NEWS!!!! We are projecting McCain as the winner of the NH primary and Romney in second.

8:02 pm: More on the "comeback kid" theme -- Not only did Clinton lose to Tsongas by 8 points, but the poll average coming into the day had Obama up by 8 over Clinton. Could that be our magic number?

8 pm: NEWS: This is ABC's official characterization of the race at the time of all poll closings: "On the Republican side we can say that based on the exit poll and the vote in so far, McCain is leading, with Romney in second. For the Democrats, it looks like a two person race between Obama and Clinton. And we can project that Edwards will be third."

First blush -- Clinton's hanging tough. Again, calling second place a win is more than a stretch for the candidate that once fashioned herself inevitable, BUT staying close (sorry, I'm going to weasal out on naming a margin, but I'll know it when I see it) will give the Clinton campaign license to say the Obama "wave" is hardly a tsunami. Maybe, just maybe, a chance for her to change to storyline.

And for Romney -- whoa boy, they've gotta hope the early indications are off. He would love to -- if not quite need to -- snatch a victory here. If he loses here, all bets are off in Michigan next week. If he loses there, too -- at least he's got a nice couple of houses and some good looking sons and daughters-in-law.

As for raw vote, with 9 percent of precincts reporting, It's Clinton 38, Obama 36, Edwards 17. For the GOP, McCain 37, Romney 28, Huckabee 12, Giuliani 9, Paul 8.

7:40 pm: We're seeing real returns flow in, but try your best to tune them out (I know I am). I'll keep you updated on anything meaningful -- most polls closed at 7, but 25 percent of the state lives in a place where you can vote until 8 pm, our New Hampshire expert, Karen Travers tells us. Early returns just tell us who's counting and tallying the fastest.

7:36 pm: Lori -- you mention John Edwards. He is a factor here. I talked to someone in his campaign a few hours ago, and they're hoping for a showing in the teens tonight -- which would be respectable. But he had so many hopes tied up in Iowa, and came in second there, so coming in third here would be hard to spin. That puts him into South Carolina with all the marbles on the line. That said, he is vowing to stay into through the convention -- if he stays true to that, he could keep things interesting for a while, even if he doesn't win states.

7:10 pm: Don't know yet if this counts as a shake-up, but ABC News is reporting that the Clinton campaign is bringing in a new body to coordiate campaign activities: Maggie Williams, a longtime Clinton confidante. This probably won't be the last move, either, our reporters are hearing. There's a delicate balance to shake-ups -- you need enough new people to make a difference, but can't telegraph panic by engaging in a house-cleaning.

7 pm: I'm interested in thoughts on margin of victory: How badly can a candidate lose and still declare victory?

6:50 pm: Here's our polling director's first cut on this. I should also note that the campaigns are furiously spinning the early exit poll numbers. I will repeat what I said earlier -- is there a need for spin when the results will speak for themselves? (Short answer, I'm afraid to say, is yes -- since what matters is how the numbers are perceived as much as the numbers themselves.)

6:07 pm: More on the youth vote -- preliminary numbers suggest that only about one in six Democratic voters are under age 30 -- another data point that isn't great for Obama. So far -- this is not looking like another Iowa. I come back to the point I made earlier: If Obama wins by just a little bit, won't the Clinton folks declare victory?

Meanwhile, at the Obama rally at Nashua South High School, the "CHANGE we can believe in" placard has just been hung on the podium, ABC's Sunlen Miller informs us. Said the tech staffer who was testing the mic: "I'm not him, you don't need to take picture of me, he'll be here in a couple hours." If he wins, he'll be very happy, of course, but there could me more than one "victory" speech tonight.

5:53 pm: OK -- some preliminary analysis from the network exit polls. First, there are more independents voting, but NOT disproportionately so. Our polling director, Gary Langer, says they are voting in "substantial but customary numbers." This suggests a closer race, maybe in both sides. But there's also a roughly equal portion of independents voting in the GOP primary as did in 2000, when McCain used them to power to victory. So that's not great news for Obama. So far, there's a spike in older voters, but NOT in younger voters -- but they tend to vote later. So that's not great for Obama. Overall, that would suggest a closer contest on the Democratic side than we have expected based on polls. We may be here for a while...

5:30 pm: Food for thought: Bill Clinton lost to Paul Tsongas in the New Hampshire primary by 8 points and still called himself the "comeback kid" -- quite famously, as it would turn out. If Hillary Clinton loses by, say, 5 points -- would she have the chutzpah to grab the label herself?

4:12 pm: Howard -- Boston is having a nice little year in sports, I concede that point. Anyway, we're in expectations-setting time. It's kind of silly, actually -- pre-spin, when all that matters today is the results, not what people are predicting that the future results may mean. But I think it's important to remember the context: Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton were the frontrunners here for a very long time, so not winning is more devastating to them than it will be to other candidates. IF they lose, the margin will be key -- a blowout is tough to explain away. And generally speaking, I think tonight is going to mean more in the long term on the Democratic side than the Republican side. I don't see any result crowning a GOP favorite, while an Obama win makes him the frontrunner. Thoughts?

3:25 pm: First, a caveat: We do NOT know what's going to happen with today's voting. The polls don't close for more than four hours, and we know nothing for real until then. But there is palpable momentum for Barack Obama, which in the absence of real news has prompted a parlor game of sorts: How does the Clinton campaign react? The likeliest scenario, based on my conversations: She brings new people in (layering above some of the current gurus -- not a public ousting). She then announces (or signals through her travel calendar) that the only thing she cares about next is Feb. 5, when 20-plus states hold primaries. That means essentially writing off South Carolina and Nevada. Risky? Sure, it let's Obama build up a bigger head of steam, and her fundraising will suffer with every successive defeat. But this gives her a four-week time frame -- more time to start to drop negative advertising, and begin to aggressive define Obama. This is a regional strategy, not a national one, but may be her best way back into the race. IF she loses. IF she wins, well, she could rightly declare to be another "Comeback Kid."

3 pm ET: Hey gang, Rick Klein from ABC's The Note here. I wasn't going to start this blog for a few more hours, but something pretty incredible just happened that speaks to this strange, insular world we in the press inhabit for a few days every few years, when Des Moines and then Manchester become the center of the political universe.

So I'm in the ABC workspace at the Radisson in Manchester, and who walks in but ... Dennis Kucinich. No big deal, right? Lots of candidates milling around these parts these days. But then he proceeds to RAID THE MIXED NUTS CAN on the ABC snack table. Not like a cashew or two -- big handfuls. His wife is munching too. This would be the same Dennis Kucinich who FILED FOR A TEMPORARY RESTRAINING ORDER AGAINST ABC over the weekend to try to block our debate from going forward, arguing that he was being unfairly excluded. I walked over to his wife, Elizabeth, who was also enjoying the snacks. "So sorry," she said, "but we're absolutely starving." I said to her, "Come on, now, you sued us, and now you're stealing our nuts?" She shrugged -- semi-apologetically, in my estimation. And with that, Rep. Kucinich grabbed a mini-can of Pringles and walked away.

January 8, 2008 in Tancredo, Tom, Thompson, Fred | Permalink | User Comments (51)

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Hahahaha. Hilarious. Great story.

Posted by: Damien | Jan 8, 2008 3:10:04 PM

Pathetic Man and Wife. Pathetic.

Posted by: Lawrence | Jan 8, 2008 3:25:05 PM

Rick, you're off to a heck of a start .... Best wishes from your old friends in Boston -- we've already lost one election today -- Jim Rice came up short for the Hall of Fame, but we remain the sports capital of America.

Posted by: Howard L. | Jan 8, 2008 3:30:17 PM

It is not hilarious that Obama is the weaker candiate and is coddled by the press and his shenanigans covered up or not exposed. The GOP wants to run against Obama in a national election because he doesn't stand a chance. Obama is a Ralph Nader and those types of egos serve no one but themselves and certainly not the American people. Don't be fooled.

Posted by: Sandra Lea | Jan 8, 2008 4:01:05 PM

Why has no one mentioned that the young fanatics for Paul do not likely get polled b/c they have cell phones?

They will bleed away support for McCain by indies, imo, and give Paul a stunningly strong THIRD place finish tonight!

Posted by: ellis | Jan 8, 2008 4:05:16 PM

are you kidding me?

you actually felt that because he sued to be rightfully included in a debate that it somehow is blogworthy to talk about peanuts?

comparing the two actions, i'd say the reporter wins the pettiness award in a landslide.

Posted by: jason | Jan 8, 2008 4:08:59 PM

bah. it was a harmless, amusing little anecdote, heh.

clinto INC should not freak too much when they come in 2nd tonight--remember--the media love to build up, then tear down! Obama the Golden will soon be more scrutinized than a grandmother in an airport security line, lol!

Posted by: ellis | Jan 8, 2008 4:10:15 PM

Yes Senator Hillary Clinton keeps saying she is running on experience. Well I would like to know where she got her experience! Bill Clinton served in office for two terms as President. Unless He just sat in the position and Hillary Clinton Ran the Country, how can she say she has lots of experience.Was not she a lawyer before she became firstlady. Or was President Clinto First Husband and Mrs Clinton held the reigns as President? I would like to know where her experience comes from. It seems no one wants to challenge her on it.

Posted by: Yvonne | Jan 8, 2008 4:16:46 PM

Posted by: Yvonne | Jan 8, 2008 4:16:56 PM

Funny story - shows the human side in this campaign. Thanks for sharing the story.

Posted by: Denise | Jan 8, 2008 4:18:27 PM

IMHO, when a can of nuts becomes news, no matter who or what the instance, we are having a really SLOW.. news day!

Hahaha... maybe it's funny, maybe sad, maybe neither but gee folks let's not be overly touchy since we ARE waiting for real news.

Posted by: Elizabeth | Jan 8, 2008 4:23:09 PM

I just can't get over the way the system works over there in the States (i'm following this from Ireland). Obama wins in one tiny, unrepresentative state and the media go crazy over him...hyped media attention then means more votes...i'm just not sure how fair the system actually is. Why can't all the primaries/caucuses be held on the same day? I love following US politics but this primary system just doesn't seem right somehow. Obama looks like a great candidate but I would love to see him in 4-8 years time as president. Hillary would be better now. Both Obama and Hillary are held in really high regard over here (Obama apparently has some Irish relations!!...who hasn't!) Good luck to Hillary.

Posted by: Louise | Jan 8, 2008 4:31:31 PM

LOL, The person calling Ron Paul a bigot because he is a republican?!?! I'm not a RP supporter by any means, nor a republican, but it sound like that is painting all republicans with a broad brush!!!

Bravo for hippocricsy!

Posted by: George | Jan 8, 2008 4:32:45 PM

Don't be petty about your nuts. If you don't want people to eat them, don't put them on the snack table. Lots of people work with each other while suing each other, especially in politics. And heck, abc deprived Kucinich of a forum for his views worth millions of dollars - at least you shouldn't be a cheap squirrel with your nuts. Hooray for Kucinich for kicking abc in the nuts.... have a cashew Dennis....

Posted by: m | Jan 8, 2008 4:44:03 PM

At least G.W. Bush had experience running government, Barack Hussein Obama has never even been a mayor of a city or for that matter has never ran a business. HOW CAN HE RUN THE BEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD?! Help me understand, seriously, HOW? We need someone who will produce best results for our economy and make our country great in the eyes of the world again. I know Hilary will do that, her experience along with decision making under intense pressure will make our country grand once again!

Posted by: Luis Limo | Jan 8, 2008 4:49:49 PM

are you saying the black race is under the thumb of the white race, this is not so.

Posted by: IVAN WILSON | Jan 8, 2008 4:52:01 PM

That is you thought and your thought only, not mine. Think harder brain.

Posted by: Luis Limo | Jan 8, 2008 4:56:27 PM

For Elizabeth from Ireland...

Thanks for your interest in our politics, even if your perceptions are colored by your own peculiar national viewpoint. Not to be rude, Elizabeth, but you simply have no idea how irrelevant most Americans think you, and the rest of Europe, is when it comes to our national affairs. You just don't matter. You have every right (I suppose) to voice your opinions here, but I personally wish you would go away and take your simpering condescension along with you.

Posted by: Colfax | Jan 8, 2008 5:00:14 PM

How about giving each candidate equal opportunity to speak to a public that should get to make informed decisions with the help of the media rather than in spite of it. Kucinich deserves a lot more than your nuts!

Posted by: Bethany | Jan 8, 2008 5:12:44 PM

Rick --

Thanks, my thought is that 4 weeks is a long time between NH and Feb 5 and a lot can happen in that time to the major candidates. Events also impact the primaries -- Carter was on a run in the primaries of 1980 until Donald McHenry misspoke at the UN and gave Kennedy a string of wins. Also, Gary Hart was the hot property 4 years later until "Where's the Beef"? (Note: Hart would win "open" primaries with Independents; Mondale won "closed" primaries with Democrats only -- will this be a rerun? Bill Clinton conceded Iowa and lost NH, and so on.

Anyway, I assume that HRC will still lead in delegates after today and after SC, even with some movement to Obama. Feb 5 will be the ball game.

Posted by: Howard L. | Jan 8, 2008 5:16:52 PM

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