Newt Gingrich holds up a stuffed animal at a town hall in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Jeff Siner/Charlotte Observer/ZumaPressOn Thursday, Newt Gingrich told CNN that the South Carolina Republican primary "is going to be Armageddon." On Friday, the candidate picked up the endorsement of the co-creator of the End Times series, Left Behind. That, at least, is this morning's big announcement from the Gingrich campaign: Per a release, Tim LaHaye, best-selling author and probably the single greatest influence on the way Americans think about the Rapture (to the extent that we think about the Rapture), has come off the bench to throw his support behind the former House speaker. It's not a game-changer, but it's not nothing, either; LaHaye and his wife, Beverley, supported Mike ... Continue reading →
Forget door-knocking. In reality, it’s more trainspotting. Reporters hang out at candidate appearances — and restaurants — talking primarily among themselves and comparing notes on which canned events they attended. (Did you see Santorum in Salem? No, I went to Romney in Hudson so I could catch Newt in Nashua.)But this week something terrible happened. The Post’s op-ed editor, Autumn Brewington, joined me in New Hampshire — and discovered the reporters’ dirty little secret.This year turned out to be a particularly wasteful one in the Granite State. Once Romney won in Iowa, the question was not whether he would win here but by how much. Yet the reporters descended anyway: Our hotel rooms were nonrefundable.The good residents of New Hampshire, uninspired by the candidates, seemed ... Continue reading →
MANCHESTER, N.H. — Many New Hampshire voters can’t wait for the primary to be over: the campaign ads plastering the local airwaves, the robo-calls from candidates, the reporters swarming their cities and towns. But for some New Hampshire businesses, primary season is a gift. For Darlene and Eric Johnston, who run the Ash Street Inn, the primary is a gift. (Sacha Pfeiffer/WBUR) Take Eric Johnston for instance. He loves the New Hampshire primary. He and his wife Darlene run a bed-and-breakfast in downtown Manchester called the Ash Street Inn. In a typical January, they’d be lucky to have 25 rooms filled the whole month. But so far, this January, “I think right now we’re up to 70,” he said. All of this is thanks to ... Continue reading →
Variations on a theme: Grant Wood's American Gothic (left), and the label for New Hampshire-based Smuttynose IPA. Grant Wood/Wikimedia Commons; Smuttynose Brewing Company/FlickrNew Hampshire voters are different than you. So we've been told, anyway. "New Hampshire voters are no pushovers," writes the Los Angeles Times, informing us the the residents of the Granite State are, variously, "cranky," "obdurate," and "independent." They're also "Yankee stoics," "no-nonsense," and "rock-ribbed," adds McClatchy's David Lightman. Conservative talk radio host Mark Steyn calls New Hampshirites "crusty," "cranky," and "contrarian." Hardball host Chris Matthews attempted to sum up the state's electorate as "real," "American," and "flinty." "We take the vetting of the candidates very seriously," says Republican Kelly Ayotte, the state's junior senator. New Hampshire voters are many things (or at ... Continue reading →
