Obama Leads Democratic Pack Going into N.H. Primary

Mark, everything is about expectations tonight. What are yours, in terms of the Democrats?

MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist: My expectation is, Jim, that Barack Obama will win New Hampshire, and I think it's the confirmation of a truism, and that is Republicans fall in line, and Democrats fall in love.

Historically, the Republican who has led in the Gallup poll one year before the nominating convention the last 14 elections has been nominated. The party is usually the one that the party rallies, designates, deems the appropriate successor.

On the Democratic side, it's the other side. They have to fall in love. And, right now, they've fallen in love with Barack Obama. How long it lasts, we don't know. But, I mean, that's the problem I think that Hillary Clinton is fighting right now.

JIM LEHRER: Do you think that's -- you have that same expectation for tonight?

DAVID BROOKS, Columnist, New York Times: I don't think anybody thinks Hillary Clinton is going to win this primary. The question is the psychological effect. And I think there's sort of a magic line of single or double digits.

If she wins in the single digits, I think there's slightly less panic -- if she loses by single digits, slightly less panic. Her donors are slightly less angry. But there's still a lot of anxiety in the Clinton camp, as Gwen mentioned.

It reminds me a bit of George Bush I, the elder, as he regarded Bill Clinton. Who is this upstart? Who is this guy who's never achieved anything? How is he possibly beating me?

There's a bit of disbelief. There's an incredible amount of anger at us in the media for not showing what they think of as his inconsistencies. And they're about to take the gloves off and show what they think are damaging inconsistencies.

I've heard their arguments. I don't think there's much there, but they are about to get a lot tougher on him.

JIM LEHRER: Do you expect that to happen, too, Mark? It's going to be a much tougher race from this point on, assuming some kind of result tonight that has Barack Obama ahead of Hillary Clinton?

And the press was complicit in this. I mean, all through the fall, the press was basically saying there isn't any race here. There's a competition on the Republican side. I mean, Clinton, well-oiled Clinton machine.

In a strange way, it seems that the press now, who drank the Kool-Aid in large measure, is now a little ticked off at the Clintons because the campaign that they ran proved that the press was wrong. And so now they're revolting against the press.

I mean, it's a fascinating thing. Whenever you see a losing candidate blame it on the press, it's a bad sign that the thing is not going well.

And Gwen and Ray talking about changing the personnel. It's like a baseball team. You can't fire the owner. The candidate's the owner of the campaign. You fire the manager. You fire the third baseman.

DAVID BROOKS: And you can't fire the husband in this case.

JIM LEHRER: What would you expect Obama to do? If he does well tonight, what would you expect him to do from this point on?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, he's been pretty consistent. He's given this speech, which is a very inspiring speech. And when asked about the Clinton attacks, he says, "Well, they're desperate." I think he used the word it's kind of depressing what they're doing.

And so he's rising above it, which is exactly what he should be doing. And they're just getting madder and madder.

And what they're doing is they're using these quotes. The one quote that they use is a 2004 quote where Obama apparently said, "Bush and I don't disagree on the war." He was talking about a very narrow slice of the war.

And the Clinton camp says, "Well, he may disagree -- they don't disagree on the whole war," so they're editing out a little quote to distort it, I think. And so that's the kind of attack they're hitting him with.

JIM LEHRER: What about John Edwards? What does he do? Assuming he comes in third, what does he have to do to remain viable number three after tonight?

MARK SHIELDS: You know, I'm not sure. I was with John Edwards. I just got back from New Hampshire today, and I was with John Edwards. And he gets great crowds. He delivers his message. I think he's got the strongest message of anybody in the campaign.

But in a time of great unrest and dissatisfaction, people think the country is headed in the wrong direction, people think there is a tilt very much in policies toward the rich, and yet he's in this race where he's got two -- in Bill Richardson's words -- behemoths. I mean, he really does.

I don't know what he does. I think what's missing from John Edwards' message so far is really a sense of optimism about, you know, "We can do this," and to give examples of it.

He does the litany and the syllabus of errors very, very well. But I'm not sure -- I think he'll probably get Barack Obama one on one in South Carolina, because my best guess would be that Hillary Clinton will skip South Carolina if she loses tonight in New Hampshire.

JIM LEHRER: Do you expect Edwards and Bill Richardson to stay in the race no matter what happens tonight?

DAVID BROOKS: The Edwards people are sure, one, as one of them told me, "We have no shame. We'll stay forever." He's got nothing else to do. So they say, "We'll stay there until the convention. We have no shame."

And I don't know. I think there's some dog in this there. They will stick it out, because, as he says, it's not just about me. It's a cause he believes in, the cause of combating corporate greed.

JIM LEHRER: Sure. OK.

MARGARET WARNER: And for that, we turn to Stuart Rothenberg, editor and publisher of the Rothenberg Political Report, and Amy Walter, editor-in-chief of the National Journal's political daily The Hotline.

Welcome, Amy.

Welcome, Stu.

Stu, tell us first, who is this Democratic electorate, both from what we know about today and historically, as compared to the folks who turned out for the Democratic caucuses in Iowa last week?

STUART ROTHENBERG, Rothenberg Political Report: Well, Margaret, I went back to the 2004 numbers, the Iowa entrance polls and the New Hampshire exit polls. And there are significant differences.

These two different electorates, so it's important to understand that going in.

In terms of age in New Hampshire, much younger. Just one quick example, in 2004, Democrats age 65 and older constituted 27 percent of caucus participants. New Hampshire primary 65 and older just 11 percent.

Total family income, much more affluent in New Hampshire than in Iowa. Ideology, by 20 points there were more liberals than moderates in Iowa, 57 percent to 37 percent four years ago. In New Hampshire, even split in terms of liberal and moderate Democrats.

In terms of party ID, Iowa caucuses, not surprisingly, overwhelming participants are Democrats. But in New Hampshire, they split four years ago between independents and Democrats.

And, of course, we're going to have some younger voters this time in New Hampshire, as we did in Iowa. So this is a more upscale, affluent, younger, more moderate electorate.

MARGARET WARNER: So, Amy, the groups that are -- there are fewer of them in New Hampshire -- are the very groups that Hillary Clinton classically was relying on, yet she started out doing very well in New Hampshire. For how long was she the leader before the Obama surge?

AMY WALTER, The National Journal: She was doing very well, especially over the summer you saw her build up her lead in New Hampshire. But you also saw that's when her lead was also expanding in the national polls, because she was able to do one thing, one very important thing.

As Stu pointed out, independents make up a significant portion of the electorate in New Hampshire. And she was competitive with Obama. At one point, she was actually ahead of him by a pretty significant margin among independents, while still having a really big lead among Democratic core voters.

Where you started to see this race break open for Obama, when you could tell that things were turning around was when Obama started to catch up with core Democrats.

So she's still doing well among core Democrats in that she's tied with him there, but the fact that he caught up there and then really among independents just started to skyrocket past her in December and then, of course, ever since the Iowa caucuses, he's been able to really dominate among that group of voters.

MARGARET WARNER: So there's been so much attention to the independents, but again, historically, I mean, the wires are reporting that as of at least mid-afternoon it looks like roughly 40 percent of those in the Democratic primary were independents. Is that really out of line from the past?

STUART ROTHENBERG: Not really. You know, we ought to tell people that, when we talk about independents, it's not as if we have this mass of people and they have no preference one way or another.

Frankly, Margaret, there are Republican-leaning independents and Democratic-leaning independents. So all independents are not the same.

But they are very relevant here in both parties, because of the sheer numbers and because they are up for grabs within each contest.

AMY WALTER: And they're more attracted -- I mean, I think Stu is exactly right. They're not just these people wondering around waiting, "Which party? I mean, and especially -- where should I do?"

And especially because, between the Democrat and the Republican, these are very different candidates with a very different focus, especially on issues like the war, et cetera.

So I think what you're looking at, can you turn out and energize a group of people who aren't your sort of typical Democratic core voter? That's the Hillary Clinton voter.

And we talked about it about Iowa, that those folks who probably, economically and otherwise, a little more downscale, were probably talking about the same group of voters in terms of blue collar, et cetera, those people that Hillary Clinton has appealed to, they make up a good core.

But if the independents turn out at a higher percentage, those are the kinds of people attracted to Barack Obama.

STUART ROTHENBERG: Can I just simply add that, traditionally, if you look at the data, independents are more style voters, less in terms of hard-and-fast issues, ideology. It's more about mood. Who do I like? Who excites me? That's the good news for Barack Obama.

MARGARET WARNER: So when we see a late surge like this for Obama, at least in the polls, what is really happening? I mean, is everyone independently making up their mind, "I like Barack Obama"? Or is there a kind of wave that takes over that really overwhelms all this microanalysis we've been doing, slicing and dicing the electorate?

AMY WALTER: Well, I mean, Stu brought it up perfectly when he said -- if you're a style voter. And you can see this in the polling when you look over the course.

Even just from late December until now, which is not a very long period of time in terms of polling and looking at history, but when you see how quickly Obama's margins among independents grew, you can see that's when we talk about that wave. That's where it started.

STUART ROTHENBERG: But I'd simply add this. There is, of course, a bandwagon effect. Everybody has heard of it. You want to jump on, get on with the winner.

But also, remember, independents are going to focus and make decisions later, because they're not strong partisans so they don't pay attention early. So what's happening later? People focusing on change; there's a big buzz. That, too, is helping Obama, I would suspect.

MARGARET WARNER: All right, we'll be back. Thank you.