However, this year’s New Hampshire Primary has none of the feeling of all those others. In fact, PJ Media’s Rick Moran has declared the New Hampshire Primary “a dud”.
Unfortunately I have to agree with him on this one.
The New Hampshire Republican primary of 1980 was one for the history books. Two presidents (Reagan and Bush) were on the ballot, along with the dynamic former Texas Governor John Connally, Rep. Phil Crane (who ended up writing the 1982 tax cut bill), and Senate Minority Leader (soon to become Majority Leader) Howard Baker.That isn’t happening this time around. Instead it seems to be depending much more on mailings and TV ads rather than the old fashioned “retail campaigning” – meeting and talking to people face to face. Some of that might be attributed to the DNC’s stripping New Hampshire of its First In The Nation slot at the behest of Joe Biden as payment for South Carolina ‘saving’ his campaign with a win in 2020 after his drubbing in New Hampshire, losing to Bernie Sanders by a wide margin.
It may have been the most talented, weighty group of Republican presidential candidates in history. Before cable news, there was fierce competition among the three networks for viewers, meaning the networks pulled out all the stops, sending their stars to traipse around the snows of the Granite State.
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The 2024 version of the New Hampshire primary may be the dullest contest in the storied history of the primary in the state.
“It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before in my 32 years of New Hampshire presidential primary experience,” New Hampshire GOP strategist Mike Dennehy, told Politico.
“You don’t see the frenzy, the frenetic activity,” said Dave Carney, a New Hampshire Republican strategist. “You don’t see the movements that are usually going on where you have folks crisscrossing the state, trying to get every last vote.”
The enthusiasm usually seen during the lead up to the New Hampshire Primary hasn’t really been here. I haven’t seen it, at least not as I remember seeing over the previous 11 primaries. The traditional debate between the Primary candidates usually seen here on our local TV stations didn’t take place this time as two of the main Republican candidates – Trump and Haley – decided not to participate, leaving only Ron Desantis willing to do so.
With Biden not participating in the Democrat Primary since the DNC has declared it a non-event, that doesn’t leave much for the Democrat candidates with much to do. Biden isn’t even campaigning here, isn’t on the ballot, with the only way he’ll receive any votes being through a write-in campaign. (Frankly I’m surprised that New Hampshire Democrats would do so considering how he threw New Hampshire under the bus. Certainly the chairman of the New Hampshire Democrat Party – Ray Buckley - isn’t happy about how things turned out.)
I have to say I have been underwhelmed by this year’s Primary. It’s as if everyone is just going through the motions, those motions based on habit and not on actual feelings of support, excitement, or enthusiasm.
This year it feels more like grim determination driving the New Hampshire Primary, the need to get it over with as quickly as possible so we can return to dealing with the sh*t show that is the Biden Administration and all the damage it has done to the economy, our Constitutional rights, and our nation.