Hillary Wins New Hampshire, But the Presidential Race Has Just Begun

Americans have long complained they don't get a chance to pick their presidential candidates after Iowa, New Hampshire and other early primaries. This year will be different. For both parties, but especially for Democrats, the nominee will not be chosen until at least February 5th, when 22 states and Democrats abroad vote.

In the interim, there will be four more weeks of intense campaigning and scrutiny, especially as the Clinton and Obama campaigns jockey for front-runner status, as the Clinton campaign retools and focuses on big states, as the Obama campaign takes lessons from its narrow loss in New Hampshire, and as the Edwards and Richardson campaigns make final attempts to win in close-to-home states -- Nevada and South Carolina -- and shape the debate.

Clinton's razor-thin victory in New Hampshire was a surprise only because the pollsters were so out of touch with the voters -- off by 10-15 points in a number of instances. But New Hampshire is a state where Hillary was long favored and had much of the Democratic party establishment backing her. New Hampsphire was always the place for the "comeback kid scenario," reprising Bill Clinton's experience in 1992, when he came in second to Paul Tsongas.

One of the problems for Obama was that he had two candidates to fight with. Bill Clinton, who is popular in the state, went after Obama with a surprising ferocity, as did the Clinton camp as a whole. As Arianna Huffington documents, they threw everything at Obama but the kitchen sink in the last few days: "So now Hillary's sputtering campaign strategy has shifted to telling voters, 'Whatever you don't like, that's what Obama is.' Clinton and her surrogates are attacking from every direction, hoping something will stick. The attacks are as varied as they are contemptible. ... Put on your galoshes, the mud is mighty thick."

Obama's New Hampshire staff, in contrast, made some mistakes, focusing on canvassing and calling voters in the final days instead of increasing visibility with supporters on the street holding signs. Pollsters were reminded that some whites who say they will vote for an African-American candidate do not follow through. In some locations, there were problems with voting machines; however, Obama campaign insiders did not feel they affected the outcome.

New Hampshire, like Iowa, had record voter turnout. That growing public engagement will encounter a political fight where, increasingly, the gloves will come off. The broad questions in the Democratic debate -- Obama's message of inclusiveness and hope versus Clinton's emphasis on toughness and experience -- will only sharpen. The shine and gloom will come off both of the leading candidates and, hopefully, the party's ultimate nominee will be better for it.

As the contests move state by state, what can progressives expect? Interviews with contacts on the campaigns and in progressive groups on Tuesday night offered these tidbits:

Michigan -- The state's primary is January 15, and only Hillary Clinton and Dennis Kucinich will be on the ballot. That is because the Democratic National Committee penalized the state for moving its primary up and stripped it of delegates. The Kucinich campaign will likely use the contest to put impeachment on the map, said one leading progressive organizer with ties to the candidate.

Nevada -- The DNC sanctioned its contest on Saturday, January 19, to give labor and Latinos a bigger voice in the primary process. The Nevada vote comes down to winning Las Vegas, which has two-thirds of the state's population and arguably is the strongest union city in America. A well-placed contact on the Obama campaign said "the union endorsement is a lock," probably referring to the Culinary Workers Union Local 226, which is the city's best-organized union. The former grassroots organizer visited the union's headquarters six times in recent months.