Analysis: Mac Comes Back
This analysis was written by CBSNews.com senior political editor Vaughn Ververs.
John McCain's New Hampshire win, a repeat of his 2000 victory, completes a breathtaking political comeback for the 71 year-old senator. And it adds a small measure of clarity to a Republican race that has been in a state of barely organized chaos for the past year. As the race steams toward the South Carolina primary on Jan. 19, Mitt Romney is on the ropes and John McCain, for the moment, is the front-runner.
Entering the race as the Republican man to beat, McCain's campaign nearly imploded last summer when his top heavy apparatus failed to raise enough money to feed itself.
After a staff shakeup, and sitting Iowa out, the Arizona senator returned to his energetic "straight talk" approach in New Hampshire. That effort paid off tonight and should provide a sizable boost going forward.
Complete New Hampshire returns
Romney's failure to secure a win in either of the first two states despite committing deep resources in both is a crushing blow for a candidate whose strategy was largely based on sweeping out of the early contests. Romney's organization and financial resources will allow him to continue, but he's now on the outside of the track. "I lend credence to the idea that if he loses New Hampshire, it hurts him a lot," Republican strategist Tucker Eskew told CBSNew.com before Tuesday's results were in.
McCain did well among independent voters in New Hampshire, which made up 37 percent of the total GOP vote. McCain carried the most, with 39 percent.
But McCain's fortunes among party regulars may have improved as well. While independents voted heavily for McCain in New Hampshire, exit polls found he held his own among self-described Republicans, nabbing 35 percent of them compared to 33 percent who went for Romney
The GOP race now centers on South Carolina, setting up a face-off between McCain and Iowa victor Mike Huckabee, who finished a distant third in New Hampshire with Romney and Fred Thompson desperate for a breakthrough win.
Michigan holds its primary in one week but its importance in the process is debatable. Romney announced his candidacy there and it's the state his father once served as governor. McCain too has made some efforts in Michigan, where he won in the 2000 primary campaign creating a possible, but less high-profile, repeat of their New Hampshire battle. But Michigan hasn't been the kind of all-out battleground Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina are.
But Republican strategist Greg Mueller says now that he has won New Hampshire, "it will be important for Senator McCain to make a strong appeal to conservative voters in Michigan where he had success in the 2000 campaign in order to keep his train rolling into South Carolina."
Eskew, a former aide to South Carolina Governor Carroll Campbell, says Huckabee long ago began laying the kind of groundwork in the state that he did in Iowa, connecting one-on-one with religious leaders and spending time in the state. A poll taken in December, even before his Iowa caucus win, showed Huckabee led among likely Republican primary voters with 28 percent, followed by Romney at 20 percent. McCain garnered just 11 percent in the polls there. More recent polling in the state indicate an even larger lead.
It is a different part than South Carolina has played in GOP dramas in the past. Since the late 1980s, the state has served as a firewall for embattled front-runners. It has "a history of taking the established front-runner who has been knocked down in the snows of Iowa and New Hampshire and picking them up and brushing them off," he said. This year, "we hope to be a fire-starter for somebody."
Even with a win tonight, McCain faces struggles in the state among rank-and-file party stalwarts. His support for an unpopular immigration reform has hurt him in there and in a bruising 2000 campaign in the state he was branded as being an unreliable Republican, something Eskew argues has lingered in the state and one which is shared by many party activists. "There are some conservatives that will never vote for Senator McCain," says Mueller. "New Hampshire voters showed us tonight that as much as things change they stay the same," he added. "Senator McCain won his second consecutive New Hampshire primary with the help of Independent voters while the race for the GOP nomination remains wide open."
Fred Thompson, whose virtual tie for third in Iowa - a finish not poor enough to end his campaign but not good enough to boost it - left for an 11-day bus tour throughout South Carolina is making his stand in the state after finishing in a near tie with McCain in Iowa and barely registering in New Hampshire. But with few resources and a failure to catch on among voters thus far, a Thompson breakthrough is unlikely.
And then, there's Florida, which votes on January 29th where Rudy Giuliani has made his stand. Not a factor in any of the early states, Giuliani has pinned his hopes on winning Florida and the majority of the big states. Should the field enter Florida without a clear-cut front-runner, it's a strategy which could pay off. "It's a high-stakes gamble but he's still around," said Eskew.