To Be, Or Not To Be . . . Filing In New Hampshire?

While the political work obsesses over impeachment hearings, I’ve asked the good folks at NORAD to fire up their Santa Tracker a little early this year – and be on the lookout for small aircraft heading north, to New Hampshire, from Chappaqua, New York.

Why’s that?

Because Friday is the last day for presidential contenders to register for February’s New Hampshire primary – a candidate has to file papers in person by 5 p.m. local time, along with a $1,000 check – and that could make for some final-hour drama.

Or maybe not.

Now that it’s apparent that former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick is in the race and intends to compete in the Granite State, will we see a surprise last-minute entry on the part of former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who maintains that he intends to skip the nation’s first presidential primary?

And what about Hillary Clinton, one of Chappaqua’s two most famous residents? She says she’s not running, but it’s not as if she’s slamming the door on 2020 intrigue (one wonders just how many of those “many, many, many people” supposedly urging her to run – for a third time in 12 years – are looking for employment, be it a lazy ambassadorship or a cushy Schedule C appointment in a second Clinton Administration).

As far as drama goes, what we’re looking at in 2019 pales in comparison to 28 years ago when another prominent New York Democratic took the waiting game to ridiculous lengths.

In 1991, intrigue swirled around then-Gov. Mario Cuomo. He’d electrified the 1984 Democratic National Convention with this dazzling keynote address. After passing on a presidential run in 1988, the assumption was Cuomo was a go for 1992.

But such decisiveness wasn’t Cuomo’s strong suit – his presidential brooding and hedging earning the governor the sobriquet “Hamlet on the Hudson.”

How serious was “Hamlet” about running in late 1991? So much so that, on the last day to file in New Hampshire and after 10 weeks of very public agonizing on Cuomo’s part, a private plane at Albany’s airport stood by to ferry the governor to the Granite State to file his presidential paperwork.

Only, with about 90 minutes remaining before the 5 p.m. filing deadline, Cuomo held a press conference saying that a legislative impasse prevented him from talking his talents to New Hampshire and beyond (to this day, the question of had Cuomo run and what effect his candidacy would have had on Bill Clinton’s prospects remains a guessing game).

One benefit of Bloomberg not running in New Hampshire is a chance to put to rest the talk about the independent vote in that primary. Under Granite State rules, so-called “undeclared” voters can participate in either the Republican or Democratic presidential contest. It’s not an insignificant number – more than 40% of New Hampshire vote are undeclared, per the New Hampshire Secretary of State’s voter rolls.

In theory, conservative-leaning Trump independents could cross over to the Democratic side and make mischief by voting for Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren or Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (thinking they’d be easier for Trump to defeat in November), or whoever lost in Iowa so as to fracture the Democrats’ process. Just as, in 2012, there was talk of Obama-leaning independents crossing over to prop up the likes of there more toxic Ron Paul or Newt Gingrich.

But would independents necessarily jump aboard the Bloomberg bandwagon were he to come to New Hampshire and campaign as something of a Democratic-Republican hybrid?

In 2016, surveys showed the independent vote in New Hampshire breaking about 46% Republican to 40% Democratic in terms of which primary to participate. In 2008, 62% of all independents voted on the Democratic side of the two primaries. However, only 40% of them voted for Barack Obama, which suggests that New Hampshirites preferred the tried-and-true (Hillary and Bill Clinton had a sentimental relationship with the state dating back to the 1992 election), as opposed to the groundbreaking concept that was Obama.

So much for maverick thinking, even if the state twice handsomely rewarded the “maverick” John McCain, aka “New Hampshire’s senator from Arizona.”

One thing that does help in New Hampshire: a candidate with a geographical proximity to the Granite State – i.e., a better chance of winning thanks to New England roots. Just ask Sanders (the Vermont senator winning big in 2016), former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (the 2012 GOP winner), former Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry (the Democratic winner in 2004), former Massachusetts Sen. Paul Tsongas (he defeated Clinton in 1992) and former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis (1988’s Democratic winner).

Could Patrick, with his Massachusetts credentials (two terms as governor from 2007-2015) continue that string? He doesn’t have much to show in terms of money or campaign infrastructure; his theme of building “a more inclusive American dream for the next generation” hardly sets him apart from other aspirational Democrats currently in the race.

What Patrick does represent is yet another threat to the long-term health of the Biden campaign. In Patrick, the field gets another African-American candidate, but one with arguably a closer relationship to the former president and his inner circle. Unlike Bloomberg, whose filing in early March Super Tuesday states suggests a strategy based on Biden’s presumed collapse in February’s primaries, Patrick’s goal seems to outright cut into Biden’s support in New Hampshire and South Carolina.

And so the Democrats have yet another primary with a primary: it started as Biden vs. the field; then, Warren vs. the field; then, Warren vs. Biden; then Buttigieg and Bloomberg and the competition as who benefits most from a Biden collapse; and now Biden, Patrick and the question of the true heir to the Obama legacy.

Maybe it’s Barack Obama who should show up in New Hampshire tomorrow. He can’t run for the office he once held, but he can help determine which Democrat will this fall, should he offer his blessing.

And whom he’d choose? Now there’s a cliffhanger for you.

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