3 Takeaways from the New Hampshire Primary

Mitt Romney won a decisive victory in the New Hampshire primary last night, the second-largest margin of victory for a non-incumbent in over 30 years. But will Ron Paul's second place finish turn this into a two-man race? Can Romney win on electability alone?

Reason Magazine Editor in Chief Matt Welch gives three quick takeaways from the New Hampshire primary.

About 3 minutes long.

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Comments

[o3]

Paul gave one of the best speeches ive ever heard from any candidate attempting to explain complex monetary & fiscal policies.

[R C Dean]

Romney got basically the same votes in Iowa and NH that he got four years ago, when he lost, and somehow he has become electable and inevitable and has all this momentum?

Could someone explain this, pls?

[NAL]

Because McCain had his turn, already.

[sixstring]

Sure. We've been freezing our tits off for the last two months. At least we're headed south now, but I miss my family and wanna go home. Let's declare Mitt the winner so I can go home until the conventions. I don't wanna learn and then have to explain the arcane intricacies of the Nevada and Maine caucuses.

[Pips]

It means we will soon be able to marry five bitches and make mo' money.

[CE]

75 percent of Iowans voting against him and 60 percent of New Hampshirites voting against him = inevitable nominee. He's got 1 percent of the delegates locked up; everyone else should give up already.

[Death by Lawyer]

Ron Paul deftly outflanked the leftovers at the back of the field by refusing to engage in Democrat-style Bain attacks. If Paul manages a second place finish in SC, he will emerge as the anti-Romney and the ensuing debate in such a scenario would be interesting and very good for the tired old United States of America.

[RZR]

And when Paul gets the GOP nomination, every libertarian in America will receive 50 grand and a blowjob.

[R C Dean]

I'm interested in your ideas, and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

[k2000k]

go on.....

[Diomasach]

I'll take the cash, but Ron's not my type.
Now Rand, he's dreamy...

[Max]

Having a history of publishing racist diatribes is no impediment to political ambitions in Amerika.

[Auntie Semitic]

God bless America!

[Byrd]

Amen!

[cynical]

Beggars can't be choosers.

[Brandybuck]

It's a tiny state barely the size of a hangnail in Texas. A New Hampshire certainly is good news to Romney, but it ain't carte blanche to the nomination.

Remember, both of them need to win in the South. People talk about the difficulty of Ron Paul winning the South's social conservative vote, but Romney ain't exactly the social conservative favorite. His Mormonism won't play too well there, and neither will his Obama-lite policies.

p.s. Frankly, Huntsman should stay in the race and start aggressively campaigning, because I think he can build a momentum in the South that could translate into a VP slot. Simply by being a Paul-lite/not-Romney candidate.

[sixstring]

A two-Mormon ticket is not going to happen.

[Tony]

I'm thinking the Christians will be willing to sacrifice a million unborn babies to defeat Barack Obama.

[R C Dean]

Huntsman? Momentum in the South?

Seriously?

[Brandybuck]

Massachusetts big government establishment Republican? Who has a socialist health care system named after him? Gaining momentum in the South?

Seriously?

[Tony]

Conventional wisdom is that his Mormonism will be a liability for Romney. I think it's a plus. He's almost guaranteed not to have any shady episodes come to light, since Mormons have no vices. Either that or they hide them really well. Those people are weird.

[Morman]

Nice to know I'm one of "those" people...

[Bishop Love]

If Romney gets himself elected President of the United States -- thus succeeding where prophet Joe Smith failed -- does it have religious significance for the LDS church?

[Kibby]

Maybe it will mean a sequel to "The Book of Mormon" musical!

[Bannished from Luciannistan]

The economy is a shambles. Good King Barack has not accomplished anything besides managing to weaken the dollar and hike the prices of commodities. It would be cheaper for the average American citizen to just be dead.

[Tebow 's touchdown dance]

Jon Huntsman's whole purpose for being in the race -- stealing votes from Bishop Romney in NH -- is now complete. He goes forth, in his leather suede and mom jeans, only because he's enjoying the limelight. While Santorum reminds one of an accosting door greeter, Huntsman is pedantic, finger waving preacher at an uptown church in the suburbs.

[CE]

I thought Huntsman's purpose was to steal enough independent votes so Ron Paul wouldn't win New Hampshire, and to give the media one more candidate to give more coverage to than Ron Paul all year long, and to bump Gary Johnson from the debates, despite polling at the same 1 percent level.

[The best thing in life is free]

but you ain't gettin' none if your living on the streets or in the back of your car.

[A Serious Man]

Rasmussen has Paul at 11% in South Carolina, but hopefully those numbers will rise once he starts campaigning there in person.

Realistically though, Paul's biggest problem is his desire to cut the military budget. A lot of Federal defense money goes into South Carolina military bases and to defense contractors based there, so I doubt his FP message will resonate there.

[Max]

No, his biggest problem is the fake eyebrows. His least worrisome problem is his history of publishing racist diatribes.

[Unsure]

Maybe he can make the point that reducing the defense budget by cutting overseas expenses wouldn't reduce our safety or the money spent domestically.

[Max]

Ultimately, Ron Paul wants to abolish domestic spending--sort of like Pakistan.

[A Serious Man]

Ron Paul has, many times, made the point that he won't cut a penny from national defense, only from our costly overseas adventurism. But I doubt the guy who makes a living selling goods and services to military personel stationed in SC will think that deeply about it.

[Diomasach]

And like NH it's an open primary so the Dems supporting Obama can keep voting for him to try and keep his momentum going. But when he gets to the closed-primary states he's toast.

[Tolly]

"Can Romney win on electability alone?"

Christ, we all hope not. Sooner or later, he's going to have to lurch his way on to a stage and actually open his mouth and answer questions.

He's an empty suit with a crappy legacy of legislation, and his only defining qualification for being president seems to be "Because I want to be President".

He had ONE memorable exchange with Perry, and even that was devoid of substance and they BOTH ended up looking like losers.

[Harvard Law]

Ron Paul's "problem" is not that he favors a reduction in the increase of the bloated military budget. What a nation of cowards we have become; the notion that someone is going to invade us or emerge as a secular challenge to us in the world theater is ludicrous and paranoia beyond reason.

[Yale Man]

But if we don't have a mighty interventionist military how will we force countries to do business with us...

[k2000k]

Ron needs to do a better job articulating what the difference between defense spending and militarization spending is. Ron Paul isn't going to end research and development, he isn't going to scrape the construction of new carriers, or the building of new jets, accounts for 20% of total military spending. Or the research of new technologies, which is only 10% of the budget. He is going to go after our overseas deployments, which accounts for over 40% of spending. And that doesn't even take into account the natural reductions in other spending that is related to said deployments, the increase cost of fuel, maitenance, hazard paym medical costs, etc. The fact is that while the DoD does need to become leaner, its our rampat adventurism that is the main problem with the military budget.

[Pips]

We don't need carriers or jets anymore. Drone technology and missile range has already made them completely obsolete. Many of us know this already. No need for feet on the ground except for IT people who fix broken treads and blown off weapons mounts.

We are in the golden age of a fully robotic military.

[Tyler]

It's time for Reason to officially endorse Ron Paul for President of the United States.

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