John McCain and New Hampshire

He knows how important the New Hampshire primary is on Tuesday. For McCain, it really is do or die. In order to prove that he's the resurgent candidate who has been right from the start and the consistent choice for Republican voters, he needs to pull off a win (which incidentally would doom the Romney campaign.)

This all means that McCain has two main tasks over the weekend going into the primary. He needs to blow the Romney campaign out of the water and present himself as a more compelling candidate than Barack Obama.

Wait, Barack Obama you say? Yes, this is the first contest between a Republican and a Democrat. Under New Hampshire primary rules registered independents may participate in either the Republican or the Democratic primary, but not both. Therefore, independent voters, who make up a large constituency in New Hampshire have a lot of power in helping candidates to victory in New Hampshire. In 2000, independents broke 62% for John McCain. He really needs them to break that way for him again this time around.

But Obama is also looking to muscle in on the independent action. His 'change' message resonated strongly with these voters, and he may have the advantage of being a Democrat. 63% of independent NH voters have stated that they will probably vote in the Democratic primary this time around.

This doesn't doom McCain, but it is troubling and it should be something he keeps in mind when he's campaigning over the weekend. He's definitely most comfortable leaning on independent support instead of rallying to the party base. McCain did badly early in 2007 when he was the presumptive front-runner. He didn't handle 'establishment' very well, and so the independent voters would act as an affirmation exercise for the resurgence of his campaign and proof that he has returned to what he does best - straight talk, being sincere, and probably being right on top of that.

And what of destroying the Romney campaign? Iowa voters proved that the kind of negative campaigning that the Romney campaign has stooped to does not work. He beat up terribly on Huckabee, but Huckabee came away the winner and Romney clinched the non-existent political silver. But we can already see him doing it in New Hampshire. Romney seems to find it difficult to talk about himself in a positive way, as opposed to talking about his opponents in a negative way, and against John McCain this can only help the Straight Talk Express. I think McCain can pull it off against Romney, despite the fact that Romney should have a natural advantage in NH having been Governor of Massachusetts next door.

Not only will the New Hampshire vote itself be incredibly interesting, but seeing how those independent New Hampshire voters swing may tell us something about the election to come.