Race Tightening in New Hampshire: New Dynamics

A post-Iowa caucus poll has Obama and Edwards up 3 points each in New Hampshire. Hillary took it on the chin last night at the ABC debate, with Edwards and Obama both describing her as the status-quo candidate. It must be hurting her feelings.

Meanwhile, the wave of Obama-rama is growing. Bob Herbert in his Op-ed yesterday:

He has an incandescent smile, but it’s not frozen
in place. He seems authentic. When he laughs,
you have the feeling it’s because something is
funny.

People are lining up to believe in him. He has the
easy demeanor (in a long, lanky frame) of
someone who’s comfortable with himself. Even
when he fires up a crowd, he doesn’t get too hot.
He has the cadences that remind you of King but
the cool that reminds you of Kennedy — John,
not Robert.

Thomas Edsall is impressed by the demographics of Obama’s supporters:

Barack Obama has mobilized a powerful coalition
–the core of which is made up of young, well-
educated voters enraged by the war in Iraq – to
win against Hillary Clinton's supporters…

It’s significant that this new demographic has found a party. Just as the conservative revolution required a brew of “values voters,” this decade has its own viewpoint: one quite different from the previous Republican tide. The generation that’s came came out for Obama in Iowa is, in Kevin Drum’s words, “a Democratic powerhouse.”

For the most part, they're turned off by the sex and
gender fundamentalism that animates so much of
the modern Republican Party's social agenda.
Polls show that most young voters are OK with
abortion remaining legal. They have openly gay
friends and are far more comfortable with gay
marriage than their elders. They think that
legalizing marijuana for personal consumption is
common sense, not a sign of moral decay and the
breakdown of western civilization.

Whether the youth vote will stay with Obama in New Hampshire is hard to know, but for the moment, he and, to a lesser extent, Edwards, have the momentum— and the ear of the media.

Discussion at Memeorandum