What's the Matter With New Hampshire?

The liberaltarian dream dies in the Granite State.

David Weigel | June 5, 2007

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Democrats are too busy war-whooping to ponder it, but the evidence suggests that they might not be locked into power. The state is absorbing more socially liberal voters from Massachusetts, and November 2006 did gave them an opportunity for permanent majority status. But they're mistaking a desperate electorate for a lovestruck electorate. When the state runs out of the ephemeral, white-hot anger at the Iraq War that motivated libertarian-minded voters to give them a shot, Democrats won't be positioned as the kind of government-out-of-your-bedroom-and-garage-and-wallet "liberaltarians" that could perpetually win elections.

The knock on New Hampshire's presidential primary is that the state is too small, too white, too rural to provide a real measure of what the nation thinks. That's less true this year. New Hampshire is where Democrats will learn whether they've conquered the GOP and need to brainstorm ideas for corpse disposal, and it's where Republicans will figure that winning back libertarian voters is the key to their coming, miraculous resurrection.

David Weigel is an associate editor of reason.

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