By Tom Brennan
In the the film A Man for All Seasons, Richard Rich tries to rationalize his betrayal of Thomas More by explaining that the Crown would see to it he was made essentially the tax collector for Wales, if he turned on More. More is incredulous. Facing betrayal, and imminent beheading, he is preoccupied with his friend Richard having sold his soul so cheaply. “For Wales?”
The effort by the White House and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to chloroform the New Hampshire primary as we know it is bad enough, but for South Carolina, of all places? That is the plan. The national party bosses, led by a Chairman from South Carolina, want South Carolina to be the new First in the Nation (FITN) primary.
The DNC assault on our FITN status, the heavy handed sanctions to try and enforce it, and the hackneyed appeals to tribalism to justify it, would all draw more emphatic criticism were the stakes not uniquely high next year. We recall similar efforts to shush dissenting voices in the party, as well as a labored effort to promote a Granite State write-in for a weak incumbent president, in 1968. It was a mistake then, and got us Richard Nixon. It is a mistake now, and could end democracy in America as we know it. So far, no challenger of the caliber of Gene McCarthy has emerged, but the value of open grass roots democracy should not be soft peddled because it might displease the myopic Washington insiders who gratuitously picked this fight with with us. Tolerate this gratuitous outrage, NH Dems are told, or “the party” will lose, in which case it is all our fault. The reverse is true.
We do the President, or any eventual Democratic presidential nominee next year, no favor by hiding New Hampshire’s light under a bushel. It is the MAGA party that is a cult of personality. They fear debate. They display contempt for democracy. They rely on big money, big media, tribalism, and prefer Nuremberg style rallies to face to face grass roots politics. The last thing Democrats need to do is wipe out the last vestige of grass roots retail politics in this process.
This change is not about inclusion, it is about control. The arguments for doing away with the Granite State’s FITN status, and handing it to South Carolina, do not withstand scrutiny.
We are told that we are too small a state to matter in November, and have too few voters from racial or ethnic groups deemed most loyal to Democrats. The failure of Iowa Democrats to tabulate and announce their caucus results in a timely fashion is cited, as if Iowa’s caucus has anything to do with us. It is pointed out that Biden fared poorly in our primary, and everywhere else, until South Carolina voted in 2020.
These arguments are hogwash. We’ll assume the President is a bigger man than that last excuse supposes. Against Trump, we gave Biden his best margin in percentage terms of any swing state. A shift of a tiny number of votes in New Hampshire would have made Al Gore president.
Before we speak too glibly about which voters are and are not loyal to Democratic presidential candidate, we might contrast NH with South Carolina, which has not elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate in this century. Since South Carolina’s the “Democratic” Governor Strom Thurmond ushered the racists into the GOP in 1964 (16 years after his Dixiecrat treason in 1948) only one Democrat has carried South Carolina in a presidential election. Carter swept the “Cotton South” in 1976, but the novelty wore off quickly. Over the same period, NH has built a viable Democratic Party. It does not pass the smell test that the DNC Chair is from South Carolina, his own lavishly financed senate bid there lost in a landslide. New Hampshire can provide Biden with electoral votes. There is not a chance in Hell South Carolina will. The DNC has put loyal and successful Democrats in a horrible position, up and down the ballot. Friends don’t treat friends like this. The GOP is not moving the NH primary to please the DNC, nor will Granite State legislators change or laws because the DNC threatens them. Yes, the stakes are very high next year, and it is perfectly clear who has put parochial and selfish interests ahead of the greater good.
The value New Hampshire has brought to this process is misunderstood.
We don’t “pick” the president.
Our delegation is small. Since candidate preference has been on the ballot, since 1952, only five winners of seriously contested NH primaries have gone on to win in November: Eisenhower 1952, Carter 1976, Reagan 1980, Bush 1988, and Trump 2016. Eight winners were nominated but lost in November, many New England favorite sons or incumbents: Ford 1976, Carter 1980, Bush 1992, Dukakis 1988, Gore 2000, Kerry 2004, Romney 2012.
The longest list is of the winners of our primary who were not nominated: Kefauver in 1952 and 1956, write-ins Lodge and Johnson in 1964 and 1968, Muskie 1972, Hart 1984, Tsongas 1992, Buchanan 1996, McCain 2000, Hillary 2008, and Bernie the last two times.
The most interesting and salient list is of those who lost the New Hampshire primary, but effected the debate in ways that made history, the campaigns that were masterpieces of retail politics and grass roots engagement that allowed voices to be heard, which otherwise would have been shouted down by big money, big media, tribalism, and bossism— but voices that needed to be heard, and represented important trends in public opinion. McCarthy 1968, McGovern 1972, Clinton and Buchanan 1992.
Washington did not create the New Hampshire primary, it is important to remember, but New Hampshire has proved worthy of the role they have become trusted to play. They are renowned for a courteous and attentive electorate. The primary is clean, the results clear in a timely way. Since the rise of the primaries, bosses have sought to de-democratize this process. Through such devices as Super Delegates, and what amount to regional primaries, they have sought to maximize their own control, to leave the decision entirely to big money and big media.
We are hardly the last word. In 1996, 2000, 2008, and 2020 South Carolina has undone what New Hampshire did. This has occurred in both parties. Moreover, South Carolina has been the gateway to what amounts to a regional southern primary. When this happens, and when large urban delegate rich population centers vote, they rightly wield great influence. It is, however, difficult to make the case they are disenfranchised.
Little New Hampshire has established a very important contribution to this process. The DNC did violence to it, and it is they, not us, who have weakened our prospects for preventing a national catastrophe next November. We should say so without apology. Especially Democrats.