Presidential campaign moves to New HampshireGore, Bush win Iowa caucuses; Hatch quitting race
January 25, 2000
Web posted at: 4:03 p.m. EST (2103 GMT)
HUDSON, New Hampshire (CNN) -- With Iowa's caucuses behind them, winners George W. Bush and Al Gore, along with the other would-be presidents, turned their attention to New Hampshire where the first-in-the-nation primary election is one week away.
Meanwhile, Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch reportedly plans to drop out of the race after a dismal 1 percent showing in Iowa.
Only once in the history of the caucuses has a win in Iowa carried over to New Hampshire. In 1976, Democratic candidate Jimmy Carter picked up both victories on the road to the White House. Since then, only incumbent presidents -- most of them running uncontested -- have savored the dual victory.
A Quinnipiac College poll released Tuesday shows Gore and his lone Democratic rival, former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley, locked in a dead heat for next Tuesday's New Hampshire primary, with 44 percent each. But other New Hampshire polls indicate that Gore's favorability rating has risen from 45 percent to 54 percent, while Bradley's remained virtually unchanged at 56 percent.
That same poll shows Sen. John McCain with an 11-point lead over GOP front-runner Bush, 39 percent to 28 percent. Pollster Maurice Carroll said that the Arizona Republican's edge stems from the independent voters, who he said "love McCain."
Publisher Steve Forbes trailed with 9 percent, conservative activist Gary Bauer polled 7 percent, former ambassador Alan Keyes had 4 percent and Hatch had zero, according to the poll results.
Heading into the primary season, those numbers remained unchanged since the last poll. Conducted last Tuesday through Sunday, the survey included 498 registered Republicans and independents intending to vote in the Republican primary, and 371 likely voters in the Democratic primary. The margin of error on the GOP side was 4.5 percentage points and 5 percentage points for the Democratic results.
Gore hopes to ride the wave
With only 47 Democratic and 25 Republican delegates at stake in Monday's caucuses, the real prize was momentum for next Tuesday's New Hampshire primary.
Gore claimed that momentum, saying his Iowa victory - 63 percent to 35 percent - was sweeter because Democratic challenger Bill Bradley had poured millions of dollars and hours of time into the state.
Gore is clearly hoping that his huge margin of victory would carry over to the Granite State, although he said the Iowa contest is "not derivative ... it stands on its own."
New Hampshire voters consider themselves fiercely independent, and any suggestion that they could be influenced by the Iowa caucuses could leave them feeling slighted. "New Hampshire will go its own way," said Kathy Sullivan, who chairs the state Democratic Party.
Seeking to get a jump in New Hampshire, Bradley held a noisy rally at 3:30 a.m. Wednesday after arriving in Nashua, where he was greeted by more than 100 chanting and cheering backers.
"This energy is going to carry us all the way," Bradley said. "Whoever would have thought we'd be met by this kind of crowd in the middle of the night?"
In his concession speech Monday night, Bradley said that Iowa was only the beginning. He vowed that he would stay in the two-man race beyond the New Hampshire primary and the multi-state primary on March 7, which includes the delegate-rich states of California and New York.
While Bradley aides say their candidate plans to become more critical of Gore, the vice president told CNN the people of New Hampshire don't "want that, expect that, or really have any desire to go through that."
"I won't respond in kind," Gore said Tuesday, adding that he would remind New Hampshire voters how their state's economy has benefited under the Clinton-Gore Administration.
The vice president arrived in Manchester in the early morning Tuesday and will spend most of the day campaigning there.
Gore said his campaign message is also forward-looking. "We also need to make some sweeping changes by bringing revolutionary improvements to our public schools and expanding health care to all Americans in a step-by-step way, starting with health care for every child within this presidential term," he told CNN at a campaign stop in Hudson, New Hampshire.
Bush savors victory
On the Republican side, results from Iowa placed Bush well ahead of his five fellow Republican hopefuls.
The Texas governor got 41 percent of the vote followed by Forbes with 30 percent and Keyes with 14 percent.
"Yesterday was 'Thank you, Iowa.' Today is 'We're ready New Hampshire,'" Bush said early Tuesday morning after an overnight flight to Manchester, New Hampshire. "I'm energized, I'm excited, my spirits are high and I really like my chances." Bush will spend most of Tuesday campaigning in Manchester and Bedford.
Appearing Monday night on CNN's "Larry King Live," Bush said of his victory: "It's a little better than I anticipated."
Before leaving Iowa, Bush told supporters, "Seven months ago, I came to Iowa on a plane dubbed 'Great Expectations.' Tonight, Iowa has exceeded them."
Still, the Bush camp had hoped to open a wider gap in Iowa over Forbes, one that might have undermined the GOP rival. Instead, Forbes ran strong enough to describe himself as the conservative GOP alternative to Bush and McCain, candidates he continually labels as moderate.
In the waning days of the Iowa campaign, Bush defended himself against Forbes' attacks that the Texas governor was soft on abortion.
As a result, Bush was forced to swing right, insisting that he has a strong anti-abortion record, despite the fact that he refuses to take a "litmus test" pledge on the selection of a vice presidential running mate and for judicial appointees.
But in a survey of Iowa Republicans, 12 percent said a candidate's electability was their highest concern, and among that group, Bush won an overwhelming 99 percent. The Texas governor's "can-win" standing is what first made him the overwhelming favorite, and what keeps him so far ahead in national polls.
Bush's campaign strategist Karl Rove predicted that Forbes would not be able to keep pace as the campaign moves forward. "This is his high water mark," Rove said of Forbes' Iowa showing. "New Hampshire might be the same for John McCain."
Forbes is upbeat
But Forbes is calling his second-place finish in Iowa "an overwhelming conservative victory," his campaign chairman said Monday night.
"He's extremely upbeat," Ken Blackwell, national chairman of the Forbes campaign, told CNN. "He understood what we had to do -- that is, come out of Iowa as the authentic conservative candidate who can go the distance."
Forbes says his second place finish in Iowa means that he "emerged as the conservative candidate" to serve as an alternative to the front-running Bush. It also set the stage for a three-way primary fight in New Hampshire between himself, Bush and McCain.
Addressing Iowa well-wishers Monday night, a jubilant Forbes said the evening was "great," and he was ready for the challenges ahead.
After introducing three of his five daughters to the crowd, Forbes turned to his wife Sabine, describing her as a successful mother who had shepherded four of those daughters through their crucial teen-age years.
"Anyone who can help guide young women through those treacherous, dangerous, wild, adolescent and teen-age years successfully is ready for the adolescent politicians in Washington," Forbes said of his wife.
"I couldn't be happier and more excited," Forbes told CNN later in the evening. "It demonstrates that ideas matter."
Like the rest of the major candidates, Forbes flew to New Hampshire Monday night and on Tuesday will tour a factory in Hookset and appear at a rally in Portsmouth.
Keyes and Bauer forge ahead, Hatch to drop out
Speaking of his third-place finish, Keyes told CNN, "I think it will indicate that there are a lot of people in Iowa and around the country who will believe in the message of moral principles."
The bottom-tier Republican finishers in Iowa were Bauer with 9 percent, McCain with 5 percent, and Hatch with just 1 percent of the vote.
Bauer was said to be deeply disappointed and assessing the future of his candidacy, but defiantly told about 50 Iowa supporters that "I wasn't raised a quitter." The conservative activist hit the campaign trail hard in New Hampshire Tuesday, making stops in Bedford, Manchester and Exeter.
But Hatch has decided to quit the Republican presidential race, a senior adviser said Tuesday. The adviser said Hatch would announce his decision on Wednesday and his campaign in New Hampshire has reportedly already shut its doors.
"We've all seen the numbers," the aide said.
McCain an Iowa no-show
McCain skipped campaigning in Iowa to concentrate on the New Hampshire primary and campaign manager Rick Davis said he has no regrets about that strategy, despite his fifth-place finish.
"We didn't have low expectations in Iowa, we had no expectations in Iowa," Davis told CNN Tuesday morning from Sunapee, New Hampshire, where McCain was making a town-hall style appearance.
In Iowa, "there was no voter contact whatsoever, so we're just happy that 5 percent braved the cold weather ... and were there for us," Davis said.
Asked Monday night by Larry King about his 5 percent showing, McCain quipped, "That's 5 percent more than I thought I was going to get."
"Iowa was the preliminaries, New Hampshire begins the playoffs and I look forward to a spirited contest," McCain said. "The voters of Iowa have proven that the race for the Republican nomination will be a contest of ideas, not a coronation."
In order to herald those ideas, McCain plans to keep up his heavy schedule of town meetings Tuesday, stopping in Henniker, Hillsboro, Londonderry and Nashua after his 8 a.m. town meeting in Sunapee.
A dismal turnout
Despite the weeks of hype leading up to the Iowa caucuses - the true kickoff of the presidential election season - most of Iowa's eligible voters chose to skip the opportunity to vote.
CNN estimated that only 8.3 percent of the state's voting age population actually turned up at caucus voting places, with 3.5 percent of these attending Democratic gatherings, and 4.8 percent turning out for the Republicans.
The last time Democratic hopefuls slugged through a contested primary in 1988, 5.9 percent came out to vote for the five-candidate field. In 1996, 4.6 percent of the voting age population participated in the Republican caucuses.
But in New Hampshire, where 20 percent of the voters have met at least one of the candidates face to face, voter turn-out is anticipated to be much higher.
"Give those New Hampshire voters credit," Quinnipiac's Carroll said. "Two-thirds of them have watched a GOP debate and more than half of them have watched a Democratic face-off."
CNN's John King, Amy Paulson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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