After New Hampshire, a Rapidly Changing Race

After New Hampshire, a Rapidly Changing Race

A Broader Battleground & Different Blocs

By JOHN HARWOOD

Published: January 7, 2008

New York Times

MANCHESTER, N.H. -- This week New Hampshire becomes the gateway to a

new political world, one that will engage multiple constituencies,

play out over a vastly larger terrain and shift the psychology of the

competition.

As the 2008 presidential campaign moves toward nominating contests in

Florida, Michigan, Nevada and South Carolina, and then half the

country on Feb. 5, the simplicity and careful planning of Iowa and New

Hampshire will give way to a complex, high-velocity game of

"Survivor." The transformation begins here on Tuesday with the

nation's first primary, when candidates and their advisers will sift

exit polls in the early evening hours and confront their altered

prospects.

Even those who win will find it jarring. Around 6:30 p.m. on Feb. 1,

2000, in a hotel suite in Nashua, N.H., Senator John McCain of Arizona

studied exit polls showing that he had routed George W. Bush and found

himself face to face with his White House dream.

"It was no longer fun for him at that precise moment," recalled John

Weaver, Mr. McCain's strategist in that campaign. "Mentally, it's

tough for the candidate and the staff. You know, all of a sudden

you're playing on a magnified stage. That adds a tremendous amount of

pressure."

Different Blocs

After courting mostly white electorates in Iowa and New Hampshire,

Democratic candidates will compete for Latinos in Nevada and blacks in

South Carolina and the rest of the South. That heralds an increased

focus on bread-and-butter economics and decreased attention to more

esoteric discussions of political reform.

"More church visits, more plant visits," says Donna Brazile, an

African-American strategist who managed Al Gore's 2000 campaign.

The black vote represents an appreciating asset for Senator Barack

Obama of Illinois, so long as his campaign appears robust. A question

facing Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, in Nevada and in

the Western states that vote Feb. 5, is whether she can hold the

formidable Hispanic support that she has marshaled so far. In

California, Asian-Americans represent another wild card.

The Republican primary electorate grows more variegated as well, with

the Irish, Italian and Polish "Reagan Democrats" of major cities like

Detroit; Arab-Americans in Dearborn, Mich.; and Cuban immigrants in

Miami.

More than the campaign's opening chapter, this phase rewards nimble

candidates and magnifies mistakes.

"The mindset changes from the hard-core activists who pay attention to

every nitty-gritty detail," said Karl Rove, President Bush's top

strategist in 2000 and 2004, to people who "are going on the skimpiest

information. Every word you utter matters."

Broader Battleground

The scale of the new battlefield represents an immense logistical,

financial and management challenge. Not even the best-financed

campaign has the time or the money to visit or advertise in the scores

of media markets involved in the contest through Feb. 5; there are 35

markets alone in California, Florida and Michigan.

The Internet helps early winners collect more cash and convert it into

television advertising time more rapidly than before. Struggling

campaigns end up borrowing money or stretching dwindling treasuries,

and recent history casts doubt on their chances to hold "firewall"

states that once appeared safe.

But the compressed nomination calendar does offer pockets of relative

advantage for candidates to capitalize on.

If Southerners like former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, former

Senator Fred D. Thompson of Tennessee and former Senator John Edwards

of North Carolina can stay alive, Feb. 5 offers contests in Alabama,

Arkansas, Georgia, Oklahoma, Tennessee and West Virginia.

For Mr. McCain and Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, there are votes

in Arizona, Colorado, Montana and New Mexico. For Mrs. Clinton, former

Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani

of New York, there are contests in Connecticut, Delaware,

Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York.

Some past candidates have flourished in that pick-and-choose

environment by focusing on friendly regions within states. In 1988,

for example, Gov. Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts survived a Super

Tuesday against Southern rivals by scoring heavily among liberals in

South Florida and Latinos in South Texas.

With that in mind, Mr. Huckabee, for instance, a former Baptist

minister who would appear at first blush to be an unpopular candidate

in California, may be able to compete for delegates in Congressional

districts representing culturally conservative communities like Fresno

and Bakersfield.

"There's going to have to be a lot of tarmac campaigning," said Bill

Carrick, a Democratic strategist. And where candidates cannot afford

mass-market television time, radio stations catering to black

listeners and Spanish-language cable television channels offer

targeted and inexpensive alternatives.

The Mental Toll

Winning the psychological battle may be hardest of all. Candidates

struggle to hang on while they contemplate the end of their careers.

Staff members fear losing their jobs. Donors worry about throwing away

good money.

"There's a tremendous amount of personal insecurity," said Tom Rath, a

Republican operative in New Hampshire who is backing Mr. Romney.

Mr. Giuliani's campaign in particular must convince itself that its

late-starting Feb. 5 strategy can withstand the momentum reaped by

winners in Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan and South Carolina. Mr.

Giuliani, the onetime national front-runner, is focusing on Florida,

where his cash-depleted team is spending hundreds of thousands of

dollars each week on television ads designed simply to prevent his

poll numbers from falling further over the next three weeks.

Mrs. Clinton retains resources for the long haul whether she wins New

Hampshire or not. Her goal is to tip the psychology of the electorate

itself -- from an exuberant call for change to the sober scrutiny of a

potential president. Her campaign's high command faults the news media

for failing to make that happen so far, but it views such a pivot as

unavoidable if Mr. Obama wins here.

But, said Carter Eskew, a longtime adviser to Mr. Gore who is

supporting Mrs. Clinton, there is a long haul between Tuesday and Feb.

5. "Once you get out of Iowa and New Hampshire," he said, "you end the

protest phase, and you start to enter a phase where people say, 'This

is decisive.