fb-pixelN.H. campaign oddities for GOP candidates - The Boston Globe Skip to main content
SCOT LEHIGH

N.H. campaign oddities for GOP candidates

Trump supporters at a campaign rally in Manchester, N.H.Joe Raedle/Getty Images

In classic New Hampshire tradition, voters are still making up their minds, which means nothing is certain in the Granite State primary. And yet, the last week of campaigning among the Republican candidates has clarified a murky political picture.

Let’s look at what’s happened.

I, Robot

As with Stephen Byerley, the political protagonist in the Isaac Asimov short story “Evidence,” close observers of Marco Rubio have long suspected the young Florida senator of being suspiciously robotic.

Both on the stump and in debates, Rubio’s answers are almost inevitably a cut-and-paste pastiche from his well-polished stump speech. As I noted last week, when the various provisions of that speech aren’t immediately applicable, his mental GPS quickly maps the shortest route back to comfort of those oft-uttered lines.

Advertisement



In Asimov’s sci-fi tale, candidate Byerley dispelled suspicions that he was a robot rather than a living, breathing person by striking a (seeming) human and thereby violating one of the Three Laws of Robotics, the trio of ironclad internal dictates governing automatons. In New Hampshire’s poli-sci story, Rubio’s defining moment was of the automatonic variety: In Saturday’s GOP debate, he thrice voiced almost verbatim lines from his stump speech to criticize Barack Obama.

Given that his rise in New Hampshire was based largely on the search for a plausible alternative to Trump, look for Rubio’s poorly-programed-robot routine to dissipate his momentum.

Cruz in for a bruising

New Hampshire provided just as telling a snapshot of the Texas senator’s manipulative mien and mode. As a campaigner, Cruz combines two qualities honed in college. A former college debater, he believes himself adept at reframing difficult issues in a way that leaves him on more advantageous ground. And as an erstwhile college actor, he employs a breathy melodrama as he goes about that rhetorical trick.

It’s a type of politics that may well fool gullible, low-information voters. Unfortunately for Cruz, New Hampshire is a smart, perceptive state.

Advertisement



Cruz spent much of the week trying to disentangle himself from the dirty tricks his campaign committed in Iowa, with its false implication that Ben Carson was about to leave the race. His problems culminated in a question about that skullduggery during Saturday’s debate.

Bringing his (self-perceived) reframing skills to that task, Cruz contended that all his team had done was circulate news from CNN noting that, after Iowa, Carson would be taking a break and returning to his home in Florida. His camp’s only mistake, Cruz declared, was in not similarly circulating a subsequent statement by Carson’s campaign that he wasn’t quitting the race.

Problem: In fact, Cruz’s team used the CNN story to anchor its own unmistakable suggestions that Carson was suspending his campaign, something CNN hadn’t said. And, further, to urge Carson’s supporters to caucus for Cruz.

By week’s end, CNN had convincingly labeled Cruz’s explanation “a flat-out lie,” while PolitiFact rated it “false.” Call it a case of Nixonian chickens coming home to roost.

Trump galumphs

Although his missteps weren’t as pronounced as Rubio’s and Cruz’s, The Donald also spent the week badly off-balance.

He began by accusing Cruz of voter fraud in Iowa and calling for a caucus do-over. In the process, he struck a note of sympathy with Carson.

“I like Ben Carson very much and he got pretty roughed up, frankly,” Trump told CNN.

Ah, what touching campaign-trail camaraderie!

And yet, something nags . . . something from long ago, something about . . .

Advertisement



Oh, now I remember. Back in November, Trump declared that Carson’s own description of his violent youthful temper as pathological meant he had an incurable disease. And then, he slitheringly threw in the example of a child molester as point of clinical comparison. (Ah, the benefits of Trump’s friendship.)

He forfeited any Friday presence on the New Hampshire trail when, after having jetted home to New York City to sleep in his own bed, a snow storm intervened. Neither his canceled Granite State stop nor an appearance in South Carolina on the same day was lost on the New Hampshire media.

Then came his own revealing debate moment. Asked how many jobs he thought he could create in his first term and how he would do so, The Great Deal Maker came up empty. He dodged the first part of the question, and when it came to the second, he had nothing to offer beyond the usual GOP remedy of cutting corporate and individual taxes.

The businessman who styles himself Mr. Economic Know-How instead looked like a candidate with little distinct to offer beyond boasts about his abilities.

The governing class

As the New Hampshire campaign wound down, voters were focusing on which of the Republican hopefuls could actually do the job of president

That should be good news for two men: Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida, and John Kasich, the current governor of Ohio. (Less so Chris Christie; though he dismantled Rubio in the debate, my sense is that he’s been too boisterous a blunderbuss to find true New Hampshire traction.)

Advertisement



Both Bush and Kasich were seeing steadily larger crowds, and winning more notice and consideration.

Further, the type of voters attending their events — independents and center-right Republicans rather than hard-core litmus-test conservatives — bodes well.

My best guess: Predictions of their impending doom in New Hampshire are wrong. Both will live to fight another day.


Scot Lehigh can be reached at lehigh@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeScotLehigh.