Its Quirky

Maybe the result wasn't so much any meltdown of the Dean movement, as it was Kerry taking skillfull advantage of a crack in the attention sequence many Dean leaners had locked into. Kerry got a second look after a lackluster Fall start, and voters liked what they saw as they got to spend more time around him in Iowa and NH. In the end it comes down to Democrat and independent desperation to move out of the conservative, ultraright, greedy, arrogant funk the country is in politically. That means "Electability" in November will continue to be the name of the game.
With all the heat NH takes for clutching tightly to its proud status as first in the nation primary--and I can't blame outsiders for scratching their heads at the rationale of it all--you have to be here for awhile, as a targeted voter, during the process, to really get it. Why, as a fellow blogger put it, "its quirky" but somehow it works as a way to really vett these candidates. Maybe you could argue the NH electorate has been trained over the decades, classes given on the NH brand of in-your-face etiquette of hobnobbing with presidential wannabes on the street corners, at the diners, in the living rooms. The finer points of judging presidential chili. Observing it all more carefully this year, I can relate to the national news media who make the pilgrimage here every four years for this showpiece of democracy--and they do get it, these talking heads and reporters. And they get caught up in the personalization of a very public process, and they can feel how much these voters care about their responsibility. It is intimate. It is infectious. It is unique. It may not be NH's forever, but it worked rather well, again.