US Election 2008: Observations of the New Hampshire primary debates

Last night saw the last broadcast of Republican and Democrat debates prior to the New Hampshire primary tomorrow. Democrat candidates were put on the spot with regard to US prepardness for attack by terrorists without involving or informing the state in which they were operating. The candidates responses were across the board in favour of unilateral action leading to the commentator jibing that they were clearly in favour of the "Bush Doctrine".



In terms of political manoeuvring by the four Democrat candidates, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson is clearly in last place, struggling to cover the range of issues with confidence. Obama and Edwards are tacitly supportive of one another - painting Hilary Clinton as representing the "status quo". A short spat between Clinton and Obama, regarding Obama's changing opinions, saw Hilary come off worse. I suspect that Hilary needs to tone down the testosterone and drop insider language which the bulk of the electorate do not understand (such as using the term 'Predator RPV's' in a discussion of how to handle Afghanistan).



The Republican debate was more wide open with six candidates vying for the attention of the New Hampshire constituency. Of the six the two most cogent were arguably Senator McCain and Mitt Romney. However, McCain's focus on National Security feels at the intuitive level as being out of touch with voter concerns - health care, economy and immigration being at the top of the list. Whilst former New York Mayor Gulliani had moments of inspration, overall he seemed somewhat lackluster.



Whilst it is a long road to the final nominations this author suspects, based on current data, the 'big 4' vying for Republican and Democrat nominations will be McCain versus Romney for the Republicans and Obama versus Edwards for the Democrats. Sticking my neck out further, based on what I have observed so far, a Romney versus Edwards election with Romney prevailing is not the popular view in the big cities, but could play well at the grass-roots bulk of American voters.