McCain, Romney Fight for New Hampshire Votes

David, what are your expectations in terms of tonight on the Republican side?

DAVID BROOKS: I think it's extraordinarily close. McCain opened up an advantage of, if you average the polls, about a six-point advantage four or five days ago. But there's clearly, if you were out there, you got a sense that Romney was picking up, for a whole bunch of reasons.

He had good debates. McCain less than -- he had adequate debates, but not -- he didn't extend his lead. Romney I assume has a better organization. He just has so much more money.

The issue of immigration has come up. A lot of these calls that people are getting are Romney calls, reminding people about immigration, accusing McCain of supporting amnesty. So there's a whole series of reasons.

And then the final thing is Romney has now become sort of the white Obama. He's shifted his speech yet again, and it's about how he's the agent of change. He's the hope-meister. And so he's caught a moment.

It may not be a consistent moment, but McCain's speech is mostly foreign policy. And a lot of voters are more concerned with domestic policy right now. And so I think Romney is benefiting from that. So there's a whole bunch of reasons to lead you to think it's very close.

JIM LEHRER: Do you agree, very close, that your...

MARK SHIELDS: Very close, I think, and it's interesting. I think the people who prefer a person in the Republican side are going to pick John McCain. They like John McCain.

They like John McCain in spite of his positions. John McCain is a rather bizarre candidate in that he says to the voters, well, there's one other thing: If you're going to vote for me, there's one other thing you ought to know. I'm for global warming. I'm attacking global warming.

One other place I might disagree with Republicans, you know, I did vote against those tax cuts. I would still vote against those tax cuts.

I mean, he really -- with Mitt Romney, "You want it? You've got it." I mean, so it's kind of a fascinating thing.

So if you're consistent on immigration, you really dislike the illegal immigrants in this country, want to do something about it, Mitt Romney is your guy. If you want to cut taxes, Mitt Romney is your guy.

If you're looking sort of just in the sense of, who's my leader? Then John McCain is, but John does not make it an easy thing. He doesn't -- wouldn't you agree?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, his answers are so different to me. We were at a bunch of the town halls, because he calls on somebody. And if somebody asks a really harsh, nasty question, he gives them the microphone back, and then he gives it again, and it goes on for 20 minutes, this argument. And so he highlights the negative, because he wants to have the open discussion. It's so different than any other campaign.

MARK SHIELDS: I think it makes a difference certainly.

JIM LEHRER: Who's the actual winner?

MARK SHIELDS: For Mitt Romney, New Hampshire voters have been very good to Massachusetts candidates. I mean, starting with John Kennedy in 1960, Henry Cabot Lodge, a write-in candidate, won the Republican primary in '64, Paul Tsongas, Michael Dukakis, John Kerry.

All Massachusetts candidates with that shared media market, in spite of New Hampshire's dislike for all things Massachusetts, they voted for Massachusetts candidates.

And the only exception was Ted Kennedy who lost to Jimmy Carter, where he challenged a sitting president in 1980.

I think, given the amount of money he's put in there, the strategy of Romney's was obvious from the beginning: Win Iowa. Win New Hampshire. And go from there.

I think it's a real blow to Mitt Romney if he does not win New Hampshire.

DAVID BROOKS: It's equally a blow to McCain if he doesn't win.

MARK SHIELDS: It is.

DAVID BROOKS: Because he's really put all his money there, and he doesn't have that much money. But if he survives it, if it's close, I think they both march on, Romney because he has the resources to march on.

McCain can say, "Listen, I was competing with Ron Paul. I was competing with Barack Obama. I was competing with the super well-funded Mitt Romney, who poured more ads into the state than anybody else, including Clinton and Obama."

So I think they'll both limp onward, but they'll both be damaged. And then Mike Huckabee is sitting out there in places like South Carolina.

JIM LEHRER: I was going to ask you about that, yes.

DAVID BROOKS: He's a very strong candidate. His people were extremely confident about a third-place finish, privately.

JIM LEHRER: Here in New Hampshire tonight?

DAVID BROOKS: And he gets -- I asked a bunch of Republican consultants. Suppose it's one on one eventually, Huckabee and either Huckabee and Romney, Huckabee and McCain, Huckabee and somebody else, would you rule out Huckabee getting the nomination? And they all said, no, he has a very solid chance of getting the nomination.

MARK SHIELDS: I was at a Mike Huckabee rally last night in Rochester, New Hampshire. I mean, it's a very small town at a legion post. It was overflowing. I mean, there were hundreds, probably 600 people there.

Now, Chuck Norris is with him, the action actor, who's a draw. But I've got to tell you: I watched both debates on -- covered both debates on Saturday night. The single best answer given to any question by any candidate was Mike Huckabee.

He was asked, how would you -- Charlie Gibson asked how you would run against Barack Obama? Oh, I'd cast him as a liberal, this and that. He listed the points of disagreement where he disagreed with him.

And then he said, "But if you think that Barack Obama hasn't touched something and hasn't inspired people, you make a serious mistake. And Republicans better be for something, not simply against it."

It was just a -- and I'm not even doing justice in paraphrase. It was such a complete, grown-up, thoughtful serious, yet politically well-crafted answer.

I mean, David's right. He's a very formidable candidate.

JIM LEHRER: What about Thompson, Ron Paul, and Giuliani? Are they just kind of so far below the -- well, you tell me.

DAVID BROOKS: Well, Ron Paul is not. Ron Paul is everywhere. People who support Ron Paul are just everywhere, mostly young men, but they're there.

A lot of them oppose the war. A lot of them oppose the Federal Reserve. A lot of them believe in conspiracies. It's a mish-mash of some people who are very sensible, some people a little less sensible by my lights.

But they're there, and I wouldn't be surprised if they surprised people. His lawn signs have been up all around New Hampshire for months and months and months. They're really there.

The rest, really not there. Rudy Giuliani spent more money than McCain or Huckabee combined, but really not a factor. Fred Thompson, I was riding with McCain yesterday and looking out on the window on a street corner, there's Duncan Hunter and one aide waving at cars. And so that's how low it can get.

MARGARET WARNER: And once again, I'm joined by Stuart Rothenberg and Amy Walter.

So let's do to the Republicans what we did to the Democrats. First of all, tell us about this Republican electorate, the people who turn out, and how different they are here in New Hampshire or in New Hampshire from Iowa.

STUART ROTHENBERG: Right. Well, Margaret, there are very similar differences on the Republican side as on the Democratic side with Iowa and New Hampshire.

New Hampshire Republican voters tend to be significantly younger than Iowa Republicans. They're more affluent. They're more moderate, for example.

So in 2000 -- I couldn't look up 2004. There was no Republican contest. So you look at the 2000 Iowa and New Hampshire numbers. And in Iowa, 73 percent of the people who participated in the Republican caucuses described themselves as conservatives. Only 51 percent in the New Hampshire primary in the Republican primary said they were conservative.

Twice as many people, members of the religious right in Iowa than in New Hampshire in 2000. And in the last number I'll give you, I think this is...

MARGARET WARNER: And, of course, in Iowa last week, 60 percent said they were.

STUART ROTHENBERG: That's exactly what I'm going to give you. This is kind of apples and oranges, but I don't think it is. 2008, just last week, Iowa caucuses, 60 percent were evangelicals or born-agains on the Republican side. In New Hampshire in 2000, the same question, evangelicals or born-again, 19 percent.

So it is a much less religious, religious right audience. And that's an important factor in any Republican race.

MARGARET WARNER: Certainly for Mike Huckabee.

So how did this race develop in New Hampshire? It was not a situation, was it, with Clinton way ahead and Obama behind, in terms of the Democratic side. With Romney and McCain, how did it sort of develop?

AMY WALTER: Well, I think what's interesting is we talk so much about the bounce that Obama has gotten from Iowa, but there hasn't been a similar deflation on the part of Romney going in.

Now, certainly, he's in a very competitive race now with John McCain, but this had started actually back in December. It didn't start right after the Iowa caucuses.

And what you started to see was that McCain -- I mean, he plunged to the depths. Remember over the summer, as his campaign had imploded, I mean, he was getting 10 percent among Republicans, people who identified themselves as Republicans, 10 percent of the vote.

So he has jumped back dramatically among Republicans, as well as getting back to his independent voters that he relied on in 2000. But what's different about this race than 2000 is that not only are people different, but John McCain's different, too.

I mean, as Mark pointed out, yes, he's still the maverick who loves to tell you all the reasons why he disagrees with you, but he's also the establishment now. He supported Bush's plan on immigration. He supported the surge in Iraq.

And so what you're seeing is two things. One, he's doing better among Republicans than he did in 2000. He's actually slightly ahead of Romney, at least in the last tracking poll.

And he's still doing well among independents, but not by the margins he did in 2000, when he just crushed then-Governor Bush among independent voters.

So this is why I think we're seeing such a tight race. And looking at how Republicans view McCain is going to be very important for how he's seen down the road in some of these other states where independents don't play as significant of a role.

MARGARET WARNER: That raises the questions about independents. And what would constitute a great turnout among independents on the Republican side to help John McCain?

STUART ROTHENBERG: Well, independents usually constitute about 40 percent of the Republican primary electorate here in New Hampshire. The bigger the turnout, presumably the better for McCain.

The one candidate that's interesting -- Amy said that Romney has not tanked in the state, which is absolutely right. The one candidate who has tanked and probably affects this mix here is Rudy Giuliani.

If you looked at him among Republican regulars or unaffiliated voters, he was up there with McCain originally, wasn't he, Amy? And now he's absolutely nowhere.

So you have this whole slew of kind of independent or moderate Republican voters who are up for grabs.

AMY WALTER: And what's fascinating, it's not because he hasn't tried there. He spent more money than Huckabee. He spent more money than McCain. He was never able -- for some reason, he just started slipping and was never able to come back.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, meanwhile, Huckabee, the winner of the Iowa caucuses, where is his strength? I mean, those people that turned out at the event that Mark was at last night in Rochester, New Hampshire. If he doesn't have a lot of evangelicals to go to, who does he go to?

AMY WALTER: Well, he has to hope that he is getting some of those core conservative Republicans. And, again, the expectation really is the issue, right? It's really a McCain-Romney fight, as Judy pointed out.

But if he comes in third -- and as Stu points out, if he beats Rudy Giuliani, basically the Northeasterner who should be doing better in a state like this, it's going to make it really hard for Giuliani to argue, "Well, boy, I can beat Mike Huckabee in Florida."

I mean, in theory, you know, we're talking about if your goal is winning in these moderate February 5th states, which has been Giuliani's mantra for all this time, you can't win in next door New Hampshire? And if you get beat by Huckabee or even Ron Paul, that's making it very tough to make that argument.

STUART ROTHENBERG: Remember, Margaret, though, that, in 2000, 16 percent of Republican primary voters in New Hampshire identified themselves as members of the religious right. Pales in comparison to Iowa and in many other states, but it's still a core for Huckabee to start with, and then broadening it out to populists and other conservatives.

MARGARET WARNER: All right, Stu and Amy, thank you.