A retired professor and former Marine Corps officer, State Rep. Mike Moffett of Loudon chairs the House Committee on State-Federal Relations.
In a Concord Monitor My Turn last year (“First in the Nation, Joe Biden and radicalism,” 7/5/21), I explained why the Democrats were likely to eschew New Hampshire’s First in the Nation (FITN) primary due to identity politics.
It was an easy prediction.
Joe Biden finished fifth in the 2020 New Hampshire primary balloting and left the Granite State for South Carolina with votes still being cast. Kamala Harris received all of 129 votes that February 11th. One wouldn’t expect either to advocate for our FITN status.
Biden clearly made a deal with South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn to pick an African American woman as a running mate. It now appears that Biden also agreed to advocate for South Carolina to replace New Hampshire as the first primary state. Biden’s virtue-signaling ruled out 95% of possible VP candidates due to race and gender. We now have a failing eighty-year-old president and an unpopular and incompetent vice president. America’s adversaries probably chortle and cheer.
However, due to state law, New Hampshire will still have the FITN, even though Democrats will supposedly stay away. Unencumbered by identity politics, Republican presidential aspirants will still campaign here, and Granite Staters will still benefit from the associated spending and media coverage. Thank you, GOP.
So what about the Democrats?
Don’t be misled by Biden’s false claim that he’s running for a second term. He has to say that, lest he be reduced to ineffective lame duck status before the 118th Congress even convenes. But most Democrats don’t want him to run, and he won’t. By July, Biden will announce his “retirement.”
It’s another easy prediction.
But will subsequent Democratic candidates show up in New Hampshire? Yes. Initially, surrogates will thump tubs for Democratic contenders. But the surrogate campaigns will eventually yield to the real deals who will surely visit us.
Welcome, Gavin Newsom!
The Democratic National Committee won’t sanction delegates from a “pirate” primary. But Democratic candidates will still come, thumbing their noses at Biden and the DNC. They’ll need that all-important attention and momentum (if not delegates) going into South Carolina and Nevada. Although not all will come. Afraid of “disrespecting” the South Carolina Democratic electorate, some will stay away to pay homage to identity politics. It will be interesting, and fun, to see who comes and who doesn’t and how they all spin things.
Decades from now historians may look back at this era of American politics and ponder how our country detoured down so many dead end roads marked by baffling signposts with jargon about identity politics, gender identification, climate emergencies, open borders, and more. Perhaps by then, we’ll celebrate individuals based on their merit and personal ethics as opposed to immersing ourselves in poisonous, divisive identity politics.
But in the short term, folks around here wonder if there will be a consequential New Hampshire Presidential Primary in 2024. I say, “Yes. there will be.”
And that’s yet another easy prediction.