viernes, 14 de octubre de 2011

Que NH vote en diciembre puede ser peligroso para Romney

Es lo que cree Nate Silver:


So chances are that a December date would diminish the importance of New Hampshire from an electoral perspective, both because it is so disconnected from the rest of the calendar and because Mr. Romney’s rivals might have more of an excuse for a poor performance there. Candidates like Mr. Perry and Herman Cain could cite the difficulty of competing in New Hampshire on a compressed schedule, and against a candidate in Mr. Romney who has a residence in the state and is something of a native son. The news media, annoyed that the earlier date would require them to revisit their own plans for the campaign, might be happy to play along. It’s hard to know exactly how the spin war would unfold, but it’s possible that New Hampshire could come to be regarded as something of a curiosity or even a beauty contest.

Now consider how these scenarios might play out given the rest of the calendar. First, imagine that we had a schedule like in 2008, with Iowa voting in the first week of January and New Hampshire about a week later. A loss in Iowa would not be good news for Mr. Romney — particularly given that in the past, New Hampshire has shown something of a penchant for underdog, up-and-coming candidates. Still, New Hampshire would represent a hedge or buffer for Mr. Romney, and a win there would allow his campaign to recover from any loss in momentum.

If New Hampshire were already to have voted in December, however, the sting of a poor performance from Mr. Romney in Iowa could linger. While the next voting contest — Nevada on Jan. 14 — would still be a relatively good one for Mr. Romney because of the high number of Mormons there, he’d be more likely to enter the contest with unfavorable rater than favorable momentum. By the time Nevada voted, and South Carolina voted the following week, any gains Mr. Romney might have made by winning New Hampshire in December would long have been forgotten about.

Fortunately for Mr. Romney, there is a relatively elegant solution to this problem. Although Mr. Gardner has threatened the “nuclear option” of moving his state’s primary to December, he ultimately isn’t asking for all that much. If Nevada moved its caucus date to Tuesday, Jan. 17 from Saturday, Jan. 14 — just a 72-hour shift — New Hampshire’s statutory requirements would allow it to slot in on Jan. 10, giving us a January calendar that very much resembled the one we had in 2008.

If Mr. Romney’s campaign had significant enough influence on Nevada to compel it to move its caucus to January in the first place, it might now benefit from encouraging the state to comply with Mr. Gardner’s demands and move its caucus back a few days.

1 comentario:

Anónimo dijo...

Pues sí. Una victoria de Romney en NH quedaría un poco empequeñecida si dos semanas más tarde Perry o Cain ganan en Iowa. En cualquier caso, el lio de las primarias parece que se está volviendo un poco en contra de los estados, ya que a este paso van a dejar de ser la primera prueba de las primarias para convertirse en un mero straw poll.

Un saludo:
Cornelio Sila