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Tonight’s Big Loser in the Democratic Primary Won’t Be A Democrat

Jimmie | January 8, 2008 | Comments (0)

As of 10 PM, there’s still no winner on the Democratic side in New Hampshire. I have no earthly idea who will win, though I suspect that Clinton will pull it out by an eyelash (perhaps 2 percent. Maybe 3).

The odd thing here is that the big loser, if Senator Clinton wins is…John McCain.

Right now, the narrative is that John McCain is the Comeback Kid. If Hillary pulls it out and beats the Obamassiah where he’s campaigned as hard as he possibly could before she’s really brought her big campaign guns online, she will be the story all the way to Michigan. That sucks all the air out of any lift that McCain might get from the follow-up stories on his Amazing Comeback From The Brink Of Disaster. Basically, he’ll be the second or third story behind Clinton’s win and Obama’s loss. It may well push his win back behind the first commercial break in many newscasts, which will hurt a lot.

If Obama manages a late surge and pulls it out, it’s still not great news for McCain. The big story will then be how Clinton, despite being far behind in all the pre-election polls (and the exit polls!), pushed Obama to the edge before finally getting beaten. That still leaves McCain as the third story, though the narratives on Obama and Clinton will adjust just a little heading into Nevada (yeah, the Republican and Democratic primaries don’t fall in the same order).