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by Ahmer Byrd

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"Hillary should thank, McCain for New Hampshire victory "

All pre-coronation of Barak Obama as the official democratic front runner was put on hold the other day by a photo finish victory from Hillary Clinton. Most of the polls and a majority of the media had Obama winning the New Hampshire primary by a landslide. A day after the New Hampshire primary, every media outlet was offering excuses why Hillary won. Some critics said that Hillary's emotion outburst on the campaign trail helped boost her votes or how she won most of the women vote. Other pun dent's suggested that it was racial motivation that caused Obama to lose the primary. Well let me offer a few rationales.

Number one if you look at all of the polls they had Obama winning by 9 to 10 points. If you average the all of the data, Obama was only going to capture 36% of the votes, which he did. You might say the polls got it right, because in the end Obama captured 36% of the votes, while Hillary received 39%. Most of the pollster stops polling 24hrs before the New Hampshire primary and as a result we didn't get a accurate snap shot of Hillary's late surge.

Another reason and this seems more plausible, that New Hampshire is an open primary, which means whatever party you belong to you aren't locked in to only cast your vote for that party. John McCain, the "maverick" won a decisive victory on the republican contest and was the real come back kid. Why did McCaine win overwhelmingly because he captured most of the independents votes. New Hampshire historical votes for independent presidential candidates like Buchanan in 94' and McCain before in 00'.

In the Iowa caucuses, Obama won because of all of the independents that had voted for him. McCain's dominate victory spelled doom for the Obama campaign, because McCain captured most of independent votes. Hillary's emotional outburst and the Republican machine were just too much to overcome by the Obama camp. If the republican race was a little tighter and if Romney would have won on the republican side maybe the tables would have turned for an Obama victory?

It seems to me that the fix was on during the New Hampshire primary and Hillary benefited because of it. The republicans wouldn't admit it, but they would much rather have Hillary to be the democratic nominee than Obama. Hillary's "35 years of change" experience would give the republicans plenty of ammunition to cripple her presidential bid. However, Obama would cause a formidable challenge for whoever the republicans nominate as there presidential candidate. An open New Hampshire primary was the perfect storm to slow down the Obama campaign and allow Hillary to beat him. A perfect plan was that the only republican's that tried to win New Hampshire was Romney and McCain. None of the rest of the republican field conceded a victory to McCain because most of the polls predicted his comeback surge. This tactic worked perfectly because none of the republican candidates wanted Romney to win and neither did the New Hampshire independent voters. Most of the independents backed McCain overwhelmingly to defeat Romney. McCain's surge of independent votes catapulted Hillary over Obama and the republicans killed two birds with one stone. Hillary should thank John McCain and the independents for her narrow victory. Even if my theory is righ,t Obama still leading in the delegate count and is threatening to widen his lead his margin with the next few states up for grabs. Give credit where credit is due, thanks to McCain, "the maverick", strikes again.

Learn more about this author, Ahmer Byrd.

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