Senator John McCain’s first city corridor in May 1999 was terrible. Thirteen individuals milled round at a virtually empty American Legion Hall in Manchester, and solely 9 of them had been nonetheless deciding whom to vote for within the first-in-the-nation major.
But the Arizona Republican, dealing with a goliath named George W. Bush with the whole Republican institution behind him, caught with it. He took questions in church basements, diners and neighborhood facilities till the assembled voters ran out of inquiries to ask. He talked to reporters on his Straight Talk Express bus and made no secret of reaching out to independents.
In February 2000, Mr. McCain shocked the Texas governor with a convincing New Hampshire victory, 49 % to 30 %.
Accessibility, honesty, vulnerability and a near-constant presence — Nikki Haley did none of that in New Hampshire towards her personal goliath, Donald J. Trump, a far completely different candidate from Mr. Bush however one who additionally has the aura of inevitability. On Tuesday, she misplaced New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation major.
Maybe it didn’t must occur that method.
“Seven, 10, 14 days ago, I thought she could have won,” Mike Dennehy, Mr. McCain’s New Hampshire marketing campaign supervisor and the architect of his unbelievable victory. “I really did.”
New Hampshire has a method of providing politicians second possibilities and the occasional upset. Mr. McCain’s stunner in New Hampshire didn’t propel him to the Republican nomination, nevertheless it prolonged his unbelievable insurgency. Hillary Clinton hobbled into the state in 2008 after a bruising loss in Iowa to Barack Obama. Like Mr. McCain, she didn’t in the end win, however she left New Hampshire victorious over Mr. Obama and jumped right into a slugfest that will stretch on for months.
Her husband, Bill Clinton, had been left for lifeless in 1992, scarred by scandal and ending the Iowa caucuses with 2.8 %, behind “uncommitted.” His second-place end in New Hampshire was sufficient for him to proclaim himself “the comeback kid,” and are available again he did, to 2 phrases within the White House.
But for New Hampshire’s voters to grant presidential underdogs their blessing, they should see the candidates for who they’re. Mrs. Clinton’s voice quavered and her eyes teared up on major eve when Marianne Pernold Young, in a Portsmouth cafe, requested an exhausted candidate, “How do you do it?” It confirmed an emotional facet that voters had missed in all these years she had gritted her enamel and stood by her husband.
Ms. Haley, the previous South Carolina governor, did the other of all that, with a tightly managed marketing campaign that restricted her publicity, performed it secure and by no means gave voters a purpose to throw her a life vest.
“So many, many mistakes,” Mr. Dennehy mentioned. “It was a 100 percent defensive campaign when it had to be a 100 percent offensive campaign.”
It was not that Ms. Haley lacked a template. The McCain magic was maybe particular to that race: The senator was a charismatic struggle hero; his opponent was a Texan with a twang that rubbed New Englanders the fallacious method. But there have been additionally methods that had been replicable by a marketing campaign prepared to embrace its underdog standing and take dangers, New Hampshire strategists mentioned.
For the McCain marketing campaign, “straight talk” wasn’t only a slogan. Talking was a method. In the summer season of 1999, the marketing campaign was gifting away meals to lure individuals to occasions the place the candidate was given a microphone and planted onstage till each particular person had run out of inquiries to ask.
“At first it’d be six people and some lady walking her dog who wanted to see what the fuss was about,” mentioned Mike Murphy, who was the senator’s chief strategist. “We liked them going long because we didn’t have to do as many. We couldn’t afford to.”
Mr. McCain’s courtship with the news media, so alien to up to date Republican politics, yielded the advantage of the doubt from reporters who had been grateful for limitless entry. If the occasional slip of the tongue yielded a couple of unhealthy tales, Mr. McCain dusted himself off and went proper again to the reporters within the rear of the bus.
“I mean, if there was a guy from Weekly Reader with a microphone, he would have sat down with him for an hour,” recalled Dave Carney, a longtime Republican guide.
The distinction to Ms. Haley was stark. Before she even acquired to New Hampshire, she canceled a scheduled debate with Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, declaring that her solely opponent was Mr. Trump.
The argument may need made mental sense for a candidate defending a lead, however New Hampshire consultants mentioned dropping a significant televised occasion — New Hampshire’s second within the nationwide TV highlight — was an enormous, unforced error.
She additionally buttoned up her occasions, normally taking 5 questions from voters and sometimes none in any respect, only a quick stump speech and a spherical of images. Ms. Haley’s interactions with reporters had been few and much between. In the ultimate days, entry to some occasions was restricted to a handful of invited journalists.
Where Mr. McCain’s marketing campaign brazenly focused unbiased voters, Ms. Haley’s courtship of the 40 % of New Hampshire voters who’re unaffiliated with a political occasion felt virtually transgressive, as if she feared the assaults from the Trump marketing campaign.
“Show me where I’m moderate,” she demanded at occasions. Her marketing campaign fielded no “Independents for Haley” indicators just like the “Independents for McCain” indicators that cluttered yards within the southern a part of the state, and solely late in her marketing campaign did she shift to an argument that Republicans wanted to broaden their enchantment.
Colin Carberry, 52, an unbiased from Dover, thought he would vote for Ms. Haley final week, however he mentioned on Tuesday that he had by no means felt that she requested for his vote.
“She’s very scripted,” he mentioned. “She’s not a very — I don’t want to say natural politician, but a natural person.”
Instead, Mr. Carberry wrote in President Biden’s title on the Democratic poll.
Ms. Haley had her causes to watch out along with her appeals. After all, Mr. McCain’s embrace of independents and his open early push to steer Democrats to re-register as unaffiliated so they may forged their votes might solely get him to date. Three weeks later, Mr. Bush crushed him in South Carolina with Republican votes earlier than cruising to the nomination.
“I understand it’s not a long-term strategy,” Mr. Dennehy conceded. “But you have to take these things one contest at a time. If you’re going to have any opportunity to make something happen, you have to take the wins.”
Of course, there have been no ensures that any of this might have propelled Ms. Haley to victory in New Hampshire — not towards Mr. Trump, whose maintain on the Republican voting base is extraordinary, even in a state the place Republicans have tended towards moderation. Even as he lured independents, Mr. McCain held his personal with Republicans. Pre-election polls urged that Ms. Haley was badly trailing Mr. Trump among the many occasion’s voters.
It could have been Ms. Haley’s lack of a gradual message, somewhat than her lack of moments, that doomed her bid in New Hampshire. Ms. Haley tried out electability — she, not Mr. Trump, would beat Mr. Biden. She tried to reward Mr. Trump whereas saying it was time for a brand new era of management. Finally, she tried to persuade voters that he was an aged agent of chaos, mentally unfit for an additional time period.
None of it labored, Mr. Carney mentioned, as a result of Republican major voters needed Mr. Trump.
“We always think it’s the fault of the other candidates,” he mentioned. “What if people just liked the president and wanted to go back to him?”
Source: www.nytimes.com