Steve Hunt stands proudly, chest out, between two tables at Generals Sports Bar and Grill in Weare, a town in the New Hampshire hills. He made his T-shirt himself, decorated with a “no” symbol in which a picture of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton was placed. Words over the symbol read: “Anybody but Clinton.” In Steve Hunt’s mind, this “anybody” is naturally limited to any of the nine current Republican candidates for the GOP nomination.
He came to this bar on Thursday, Feb. 4, to listen to the winner of the Iowa caucus, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who has just disembarked from a bus splashed with the message “Cruz’in to Victory.” “I haven’t yet made my choice for Tuesday [Feb. 9]” – the day of the New Hampshire primaries – “I want to listen to what he has to say.” For Steve Hunt, it’s not just a question of ideas. “I want to know if he can win, because that’s what counts this year, winning,” he said.*
Cruz and the ‘Reagan Coalition’
Ted Cruz fanned the flames moments later, when describing what he calls the dramatic situation that the U.S. would face with Obama’s “third term,” reincarnated in the person of his former secretary of state, Mrs. Clinton. He speaks of the nomination of liberal justices to the Supreme Court, who will attack American values that are, according to him, already threatened. In front of several journalists, the very conservative Cruz scored laughs over the performance in Iowa by another senator, Marco Rubio, from Florida. “What did you think about the really impressive third-place finish of Marco Rubio?” he asked sarcastically. “That’s an odd collection of words: impressive third-place finish.”
A little later, Cruz talked of his ability to assemble the “Reagan Coalition,” composed of tea party “conservatives and even evangelicals and libertarians and Reagan Democrats,” who carried the former California governor to the White House. Among the Weare residents present that day, however, not everyone was convinced. Bill O’Mahony came “under orders” from his wife Jane, but he was put off by Ted Cruz’s close ties with evangelicals. Redmond Wilson, a former Marine, remains seduced by Donald Trump. What about the real estate mogul is different from the others? “Maybe he’s not polished, but he says what he thinks,”* said the solid octogenarian.
A few hours later, in front of a crowd assembled at Great Bay Community College, the billionaire, who is projected to win in New Hampshire, had a palpable appeal. There’s no need for him to finish his sentences; the crowd takes care of that for him. “Who is going to pay for the wall” that he wants to build at the Mexican border? “Mexico!” shouts the crowd. “What are you going to stop eating” because that company relocated a factory in that same country? The public shouts the name of the cookie brand in question. Trump’s rhetoric on immigration carries well in this state, where a Republican Senate candidate, Scott Brown, had already successfully marshaled it in 2014, and where Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan decided against welcoming Syrian refugees, in contravention of her party’s official position.
Scott Coulombe, another Republican voter, wants his party to win at any cost in 2016, just like Steve Hunt, and it is for this reason exactly that he was attending, on Friday, Marco Rubio’s public meeting at Hood Middle School in Derry. “I personally think that Carly Fiorina [the only female Republican candidate] is an exceptional woman, but he could be elected.”* On stage, the Florida senator was able to rally the crowd behind him, but he received the loudest applause when he, too, invoked immigration, a promise to increase military spending and when he paid tribute to police officers.
An Incompetent Process
At the end of the speech, Frank Jameson left convinced. So did a couple of retirees from Derry, Carl and Linda. Their friend Susan, however, remained skeptical. “With Marco Rubio, it’s a lot of ‘me, me’…I think that Jeb Bush represents more certainty.” “We heard him yesterday,” added Carl, “and it’s true that he seems capable and he is truly much more at ease in a town hall, than on television.”*
The former Florida governor met with his supporters the next morning in Bedford, at another school, to display his grasp of the issues, but also to discuss the incompetence of some of his rivals, which those around him understood to be Mr. Rubio, without Mr. Bush naming him explicitly. That same evening, during the eighth debate among the main Republican Party candidates, this criticism transformed into a coordinated assault among the governors, led by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Christie was ruthless toward Mr. Rubio, often critiquing him for mechanically repeating the same talking points.
“The memorized 30-second speech where you talk about how great America is at the end of it doesn’t solve one problem for one person,” Mr. Christie spat at Mr. Rubio, who, over several minutes, repeated the same criticisms about President Barack Obama in order to avoid having to elaborate on what assets he would bring as a leader. Rick Santorum, a candidate in his own right until his defeat in Iowa and who now supports Mr. Rubio, was incapable of citing a single Rubio achievement, two days earlier, on MSNBC.
Mr. Christie and Mr. Bush, much more on their game in Saturday’s debate than in previous rounds, are betting heavily on New Hampshire, as is another governor, John Kasich, from Ohio. A loss here could doom their campaigns, but if they are able to stay in the race, the moderate camp, of which Mr. Rubio is also a member, will remain strongly divided faced against Mr. Cruz and Donald Trump. Should Trump win on Feb. 9, as polls indicate he will, the Republican race will remain extremely uncertain.
*Editor’s note: These quotes, accurately translated, could not be verified.
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