El momentum de Huntsman: ¿real o fabricado?

Es una de las grandes intrigas que se resolverán esta noche.

The New Yorker:

Jon Huntsman’s underdog campaign is rampaging through the state of New Hampshire, from the southern border with Massachusetts to the mountain towns of the North, and he is set to pull off a historic shocker in Tuesday’s primary vote.

That’s the word being put out by the Huntsman campaign, anyway, and some reporters, understandably eager for a bit of excitement, are affording it some credibility. “After his buzz-worthy showing in Sunday morning’s NBC/Facebook debate, Jon M. Huntsman Jr. is suddenly Mr. Popular,” the Washington Post reported. Huntsman “is finally attracting crowds and taking the fight to Romney,” tweeted Jonathan Karl, of ABC News. “He might just be moving the market.”

The crowds at Huntsman’s events are real enough, and several new polls show that support for Huntsman is, indeed, rising. Like Rick Santorum in the last few days before the Iowa primary, he appears to be getting some reward for having spent much of the last two months traipsing across the Granite State. Two polls released yesterday showed Huntsman in a statistical tie with Ron Paul for second place.

As I pointed out in my lengthy post on the weekend debates, there are ample historic precedents for New Hampshire springing a surprise, from Eugene McCarthy putting a scare into Lyndon Johnson in 1968, to George McGovern doing the same to Ed Muskie four years later, to Hillary Clinton defeating Barack Obama in 2008. (That post can be found, along with other New Yorker campaign coverage and political content, on our new Political Scene page.) Moreover, the polls show that many voters remain undecided. And—this is perhaps most important—the polls have yet to fully capture any additional bounce Huntsman might be receiving from his strong performance in the debates.

(...) How well does Huntsman have to do for him to emerge as a real player?

I think that the answer to the first question is that Huntsman would have to come in second, ahead of Ron Paul. Given’s Paul’s strength on the ground, and the libertarian slant of many New Hampshire residents, that would be a genuine achievement—and a real shock. It’s not out of the question. But most of the polls still show Paul with a six or seven point lead over Huntsman. A strong third would win Huntsman some plaudits in the media, but it wouldn’t transform his prospects in South Carolina and Florida, where currently he has little presence.