Amy Klobuchar Won the New Hampshire Primary
Buttigieg’s Failure to Tout 2nd Place Finish as Victory Puts Amy in Winner’s Circle
Amy Klobuchar was the true winner of the 2020 New Hampshire Primary. The Granite State’s First-in-the-Nation Presidential Primary has its own unique calculus, in which second place finishes such as those of 1968, 1972 and 1992 were racked up as wins rather than losses.
In 2020, for the first time, a third place finisher was the victor of the New Hampshire Primary, as Pete Buttigieg botched things by not declaring victory over Bernie Sanders.
Reporting Racing Results an Art Not Science
From time immemorial, political pundits have used horse racing as a metaphor for our first-past-the-post election system. In horse racing, it’s WIN, PLACE + SHOW. One (1), Two (2), Three (3): WIN (1), PLACE (2), SHOW (3.)
The New Hampshire Primary has a different calculus, and the results are in.
The popular vote revealed Bernie Sanders had the most bubbles next to his name filled in with pen or magic market, a total of 76,324 representing 25.7% of the total vote. Pete Buttigieg harvested slightly less than 4,000 filled-in ballot bubbles than did#1 Near-Favorite Son Sanders of neighboring Vermont, floating 72,457 balloons over his stable (24.4%).
Sen. Amy Klobuchar from far away Minnesota, Bernie’s stalwart defender during the last Democratic debate held right here in New Hampshire, tallied the filled in ballot balloons of 58,796 votes (19.7%).
Like the balloons shaped by a clown at a children’s party, bent this way and that and curled under and tied here and pinched there to amuse and edify tots with first the making and then the presentation of the ephemeral gift of a toy dog or horse whose substance is mostly the clown’s own hot air and destined to pop soon with rough handling due to its very thin skin, well — we are going to take a breath and blow up some balloons for twisting in this political circus for your edification. Enjoy! And don’t be thinned skinned.
The Winner of the NH Primary is Amy Klobuchar
In the calculus of New Hampshire, the final results of the 2020 New Hampshire Primary Horse Race are thus:
WIN: Amy Klobuchar
PLACE: Bernie Sanders
SHOW: Elizabeth Warren
What’s that? Massachusetts’ Elizabeth Warren paid off with a SHOW? The #2 “Favorite Son” (or “Daughter” if you will) was only good for 27,387 (9.2%). The wags and rail flies who live to follow these races (and live off of them) are saying the campaign of this nag may have to be euthanized. What gives??? What about….
Well, horse races are adjudicated by stewards, and I’m the steward of this track. My pedigree goes back to the 1968 primary, where Eugene McCarthy’s PLACE in a near photo finish turned into a victory, as it knocked President Lyndon Johnson, the Old War Horse, out of the race.
Like LBJ 52 years ago, though he did well in purely technical terms, Pete Buttigeig is declared the loser of this horse race. He didn’t have enough lick to beat the 2–1 favorite, Bernie, despite going to the whip down the stretch.
The very fact that Mayor Pete didn’t declare a victory from his unlikely (as of a couple months ago) strong second-place finish behind the favorite and the runner up of the 2016 Democratic sweepstakes shows that Buttigieg’s win is as hollow as a ballon horse. It shows that his position is not strong enough for him to declare victory.
Buttigieg has been revealed to be an empty horse. The Trojans have been disgorged to storm the Troy of Priam (Bernie) and will soon, as this horse fades, will likely be recruited by Mr. Money Bags himself, Mike Bloomberg, who has a large purse and is buying up political operatives of other failed campaigns.
Pete Buttigieg FAILED in New Hampshire. He is the night’s biggest loser.
Contrast Buttigieg’s failure to claim victory with that of the “Come Back Kid” Bill Clinton, whose SHOW in the 1992 New Hampshire Preakness, I mean Primary, turned into a WIN when he went to the ultimate steward, the public, and declared himself the true winner.
In years such as 1972, when the campaign of near-favorite son Ed Muskie of Maine’s campaign began unraveling with the “Crying Incident” in front of the Union Leader building in Manchester, the second place finishers was declared the actual winner by press and pundits. George McGovern of faraway South Dakota, cowboy country, rode his 2nd place finish all the way to the nomination.
Bill Clinton not only was #2 in 1992, he won the Presidency.
When “The Comeback Kid” declared himself the winner of the ’92 New Hampshire Sweepstakes, snatching the garland of roses off of the neck of near Favorite Son Paul Tsongas of Manssachuestts, he was right to declare himself the winner.
Bill Clinton was right because he made himself the winner, and went all the way with it. Pete Buttigieg didn’t have that certain je ne sais quoi, as they say on Manchester’s francophone West Side between bites of poutine, the stuff that transforms an Arkansas hick (albeit via Oxford University and Yale Law School) into the most powerful man in the world. It’s a thing stronger than Popeye’s spinach, and Pete don’t have it!
Contrast Mayor Pete with Bill Clinton. Pete lacks the inbred confidence of the born-to-stud stallion that is an essential part of the gallop to the winner’s circle. (That once there, Bill Clinton — like one of King Augeus’s bulls — befouled the Augean Stables that is the Oval Office in ways not experienced since the days of LBJ, the Old War Horse — well, that’s another story. New Hampshire came to love Bill Clinton, if not his filly Hillary.)
Pete Buttigieg lost the 2020 New Hampshire Primary.
Pete Buttigieg doesn’t have the lasting power of a born mudder, a necessity in Presidential horse racing, in which every track is more horse dung than the mud God used to make Man (and Woman + non-binary folk). One could almost say that the mud that the electoral gods uses to make The Compleat Politician is more akin to horse dung than that made of the common clay. Or the stuff deposited in King Augeus’ stables.
It’s official: Pete Buttigieg is not just an also-ran like too-frisky Joe Biden, who always fades in these early races due to a case of the yips and has to be returned to his meadow — Pete Buttigieg is the loser.
Amy Klobuchar won the 2020 New Hampshire Primary. And Bernie Sanders is the runner-up.
Some day, when this is archived by Google, you can look it up!
