Trumped! Republican disarray and Hillary's wake-up call
The results of the February 9 New Hampshire primary are in, and the ebullient real estate tycoon Donald Trump is back in the driver's seat in the race for the Republican nomination for the US presidential elections in November.
The Republican establishment had hoped desperately that their favourite, Florida senator Marco Rubio, would build on his third-place showing in the Iowa caucus on February 1 and consolidate his position. That hope now lies in tatters. A gaggle of other candidates, including Ohio Governor John Kasich and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who have both done marginally better than Rubio, are certain to continue their campaigns. Firebrand conservative Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who did poorly despite his prior win in Iowa, will also continue as he eyes greener pastures in the friendlier terrain of South Carolina.
The results of the Democratic primary are no less dramatic. Confirming his edge in repeated polls, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has trounced former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by over 20 points to a towering victory, undermining the much-ballyhooed inevitability of Clinton, whose formidable fundraising prowess is matched by her near-total backing by the Democratic Party establishment.
Clinton's loss in New Hampshire has a poignant irony. Nearly eight years ago in 2008, she had lost the Democratic primary to a young upstart senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, in Iowa. New Hampshire was the state where she had rebounded then, although she ultimately lost that long-drawn Democratic contest. This time around, it's a self-described socialist senator who nearly caught up with her in Iowa and soundly defeated her in New Hampshire. How times change.
The real action, however, is in the Republican primary race. It's just the beginning of what is shaping up to be an extended battle in a 50-state slog (plus the District of Columbia and US territories.) Primary contestants compete for a total of 2,472 delegates allocated by various state primaries and caucuses, so the magic number for a victorious candidate is 1,237 delegates. As a measure of how early in the race it is, the total delegates allocated by Iowa and New Hampshire are just 30 and 23 respectively.
Republican Party elders are eyeing the emerging race with growing alarm. Most consider Trump, with his race-baiting bombast and substance-free theatrics, an impending general election disaster. Another leading candidate, Ted Cruz, revels in bad-mouthing the establishment of his own party. For party elders, the feeling is emphatically mutual, to the extent that many are willing to hold their noses and accept a Trump nomination if that's what it takes to stop Cruz.
The real problem for the Republican Party establishment, however, is there are still too many candidates in the race. This creates two problems. One is that the moderate (some would say sane) vote is divided up between the likes of Rubio, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, and Ohio Governor John Kasich. The other problem, in vivid display during the New Hampshire primaries, is these candidates tend to form a circular firing squad using considerable funds at their disposal to sling mud at each other.
Rubio's relatively strong performance in Iowa had raised hopes of changing the dynamics, but this youthful telegenic candidate had a spectacular meltdown at a nationally televised Republican candidates' debate – where he repeated almost verbatim the same talking point several times, even after New Jersey Chris Christie pointed unkindly pointed out that he's just a callow, empty suit with memorised talking points. In the New Hampshire primary, he ended up in fifth place with little over 10 percent of the votes.
In a muddled Republican race, this means that a candidate can win a state primary or caucus with just a plurality of the vote. Cruz, remember, won the Iowa caucus with just 28 percent of the vote. Trump won in New Hampshire with 35 percent. Republicans are terrified about ending up with a nominee who lacks popular support even within their own party. Even worse, no nominee may win a majority of delegates, and the party could be headed towards a messy brokered convention.
For the Democratic Party, the situation appears less dire. The fact that it's a two-person contest makes it simpler, and for the most part the rivalry has been remarkably civil (although the recent attacks of former US President Bill Clinton and feminist icon Gloria Steinem against the Sanders campaign struck jarring notes.) Notwithstanding Sanders' New Hampshire performance, the hurdles to his path to the Democratic nomination remain daunting. Virtually the entire Democratic Party establishment is behind Hillary, and her support among African Americans and other minorities is considerable.
Nevertheless, it's remarkable how Sanders has built up a nationwide campaign after being initially written off. With virtually no support from Democratic Party leaders, he has built a formidable grassroots fundraising network and draws massive, adoring crowds in his political rallies.
In both Iowa and New Hampshire, he drew overwhelming support from young millennials, and expanded that support among other demographic groups in New Hampshire.
Sanders' most powerful argument is that the economic and political system of the US is rigged to favour the privileged and requires radical change. Clinton agrees that there is much that is wrong with the system, but change can only be incremental, given the divided state of the U.S. Congress.
What is particularly noteworthy is that in both the Democratic and Republican parties, outsiders like Sanders and Trump (and to an extend Cruz, who portrays himself as anti-establishment) have caught the public imagination. And so it has come to pass that in the current race for president, all the governors with executive experience or a former senator and secretary of state are left by the wayside as a 75-year old Jewish atheist senator from Vermont and a rabble-rousing, even gauche, fast-talking New Yorker without any political experience have managed to strike a chord with the electorate.
As the US economy limps back, there appears to be a profound sense that the economic and political system no longer works for most of the population. What remains to be seen is how far Sanders and Trump, both dismissed off-hand by political pundits early on, can ride on this public disaffection.
We'll have a better idea on February 20, when the Republican Party holds its primary in South Carolina and the Democratic Party holds its caucus in Nevada. Stay tuned.
The writer has been a reporter and editor for over 25 years for India-West weekly newspaper, based in California, US. He has won multiple journalism awards from the New York-bases South Asia Journalism Association and the San Francisco-based New America media.