The Iowa and Granite State Follies: A Quizzical Guide [View All]

[Jerseycoa]

I looked back a few pages and didn't see this ABC News Analysis I read this morning. It's a couple of days old and seems to have missed the latest polling from New Hampshire, but it's still an interesting read.

ABC News Original Report

It once seemed clear why New Hampshire mattered: Starting with Dwight Eisenhower, no one who lost the state's first-in-the-nation presidential primary went on to get elected president. Granite Staters spent four decades invoking this factoid, proof positive of their power, prescience and uncanny ability to back the right horse.

Then it crumbled, as coincidences do — yet another bellwether done in by the law of averages.

The Democrats went first: Bill Clinton lost New Hampshire but won the presidency in 1992. And then George W. Bush did it in 2000. (Indeed, a quarter of New Hampshire winners haven't even gotten nominated).

At least there's Iowa — only its track record is worse. Just once since 1972 has the winner of a contested Iowa caucus been elected president — Bush in 2000, when he went mano-a-mano with … Steve Forbes. The stronger challenger, John McCain, sat that one out.