Huge Turnout in New Hampshire
It looks like today will be a huge day for Barack Obama. Why? Because all records will be broken today in New Hampshire with regards to voter turnout. Why’s that good news for the Hope from Chicago? Because the more people vote, the more likely it is that many of these voters are independents. And independents favor Obama over Clinton by quite a big margin.
As Ed Morrissey points out, Obama is doing great among both independents and younger voters (I suspect there’s somewhat of an overlap there though). “If the youth vote gets activated,” Ed rightfully writes, ” it means a big day for Obama and a potentially embarrassing finish for the long-time Democratic frontrunner” Hillary Clinton.
Normally a huge turnout would also be great news for John McCain, but the situation may be different this time around: if New Hampshire’s independents vote for Obama en masse, they can’t vote for McCain as well. Romney’s doing better, according to conventional wisdom at least, among Republican voters… fill in the gaps.
The turnout is so big that some towns fear they won’t have enough ballots. The more one watches what happens in the US, the more one gets the impression that Obama is leading a massive movement, almost a revolution. The numbers surprise James Joyner somewhat, especially because they indicate that all these people come out to vote for Obama. “I would have expected independents to swing towards the Republican contest, given that the polls show Obama winning comfortably while McCain and Romney are neck-and-neck,” he writes.
There’s something to that, but if this is becoming some sort of revolution, some kind of mass movement, the more success Obama has, the more success he will have in the future. That’s basically what happens in a popular support revolution. In the end, all opposition is swept aside.
Is that what we see happening here? By the looks of it, we could.
The strange thing is, I’ve got no idea what the revolution is exactly about. Nor does anyone else seem to know. Hope, change… OK, but hope for what? And what change?
Awkward. Awkward but fascinating.
Looking forward to the end tallies tomorrow, even though I don’t like this strange chain reaction – Obama can win without it and he should. I don’t want to see him swept in because that could leave him a little inexperienced in a presidential race.
I do wonder what the effects will be in South Carolina, and I also wonder if the dynamics will change once the primaries leave the "one after the other" progression and goes for Super Sunday.