Sunday, December 23, 2007

Considering the frontloading of the presidential primary process, it's kind of heartening how things remain utterly up for grabs. A new Boston Globe poll shows that Barack Obama and John McCain are neck and neck, respectively, with Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney:

Senator John McCain of Arizona, whose bid for the Republican presidential nomination was all but dead this summer, has made a dramatic recovery in the Granite State 2 1/2 weeks before the 2008 vote, pulling within 3 percentage points of front-runner Mitt Romney, a new Boston Globe poll indicates.

McCain, the darling of New Hampshire voters in the 2000 primary, has the support of 25 percent of likely Republican voters, compared with 28 percent for Romney. Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani has slid into third place, with 14 percent. A Globe poll of New Hampshire voters last month had Romney at 32 percent, Giuliani at 20 percent, and McCain at 17 percent.

Among Democratic voters, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois has opened up a narrow lead over Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, 30 percent to 28 percent. That, too, represents a major shift from last month's Globe poll, which had Clinton with a 14-point advantage. Former senator John Edwards of North Carolina remained a steady third at 14 percent.

The Globe poll also found wide disparities in voter opinion on domestic issues, with Republicans and Democrats expressing starkly different views on the government's role in healthcare and on whether illegal immigration is a problem.

In related news:

-- The ProJo's Scott MacKay, who has covered more than a few presidential races, offers a look today at the changing political character of New Hampshire and the search for votes:

With its wood-frame triple-deckers and hulking red-brick mills lining the Merrimack River, Manchester evokes its past on a slate-skied afternoon: a textile factory city of conservative Democrats, many with roots in French Canada. Today this is mostly façade: the old factories are filled with Internet Age start-ups, fancy restaurants and nonprofit education and medical offices.

The political divide in New Hampshire was historically drawn between rural Protestants and urban Roman Catholics. What they held in common was a Frostian, good-fences-make-good-neighbors lifestyle and, in politics, a disdain for large government and taxes; New Hampshire is the lone New England state without a sales or income tax.

But in recent years, the tidy villages with their white Congregational churches and town greens have drawn retirees lured by country living. “These communities have been gradually turning Democratic,” says Dante Scala, a political scientist at the University of New Hampshire. “And in the rural parts of the state, there are old native New Hampshire folks who voted Republican for years and now look at the new Southern-based Republican Party and say, ‘This isn’t my party.’ ”

A Democratic voter is now more likely to be a nurse, teacher or retiree than anyone who has anything to do with manufacturing. While the state usually leads New England in economic growth, since 2000 it has also lost a larger percentage of its manufacturing jobs than any other state in the region. A reliable Republican voter is more likely to be self-employed or a tax refugee who moved from Massachusetts.

What no one disputes is that New Hampshire has become bluer, more Democratic. Democrat John Kerry defeated President Bush here in 2004, but it was the 2006 election results that revealed a transformed New Hampshire. New voters and a Democratic surge fueled by distaste for Mr. Bush and the Iraq War led to a historic GOP rout. The state’s two Republican congressmen lost, Gov. John Lynch, a popular Democrat, coasted to reelection, and the state legislature turned Democratic for the first time since 1874. ....

Independent voters have long been important in New Hampshire, but never so much as now. More than 40 percent of voters are independent. Changes in election law have made it easier for independents to participate in primaries. Independents can vote in either party primary. Same-day, walk-up registration makes it easy to vote; show a driver’s license and a utility bill, and you’re in.