The Comeback Kids

After the Iowa caucuses we warned readers not to leap to conclusions about the outcome of the US presidential nomination races. Tuesday's New Hampshire primary results have mightily vindicated that instinct - and it is important to stick to it now. So we will say it again. A US election is a long and variegated process. It would be as foolish to say that Hillary Clinton is certain to win the Democratic nomination after her extraordinary win in New Hampshire as it has proved premature to imagine that Barack Obama's triumph in Iowa meant he would sweep to the nomination either. By the same token, it would be folly to assume that John McCain, the other winner in New Hampshire, now has the Republican nomination within his grasp, any more than Mike Huckabee had it after winning in Iowa last week.

The glib verdict on New Hampshire would be to say it was Hillary's choke in Portsmouth on Monday that won it for her. But Mrs Clinton's win was built on factors with deeper roots. She was a strong and impressive candidate - not a character in a soap - campaigning in a state that takes politics seriously and that was not going to be told who to vote for by Iowans or by a media which embraced Mr Obama with indecent haste. She debated well against her rivals last Saturday. She had an extremely good organisation headed by the former governor Jeanne Shaheen that got out the vote on a day of mild weather. She was campaigning in a state that has always been good to the Clintons. Her universal healthcare plans appealed to the significant blue-collar minority of New Hampshire residents. Older voters rated her, as did women, as did union members, as did the poor. She won because she had the appeal and the machine to mobilise the core Democratic vote to hold off the Obama challenge.

It would be perverse to call this a weakness. But it underscores a well-established proviso about Mrs Clinton's candidacy. Democrats mostly love her and Republicans mostly hate her. The crucial voters, especially in November, are the independents in between and the relatively small number of Americans who have not yet formed a view about the most famous woman politician in the world. Mrs Clinton did well enough among independents and unregistered voters in New Hampshire to suggest that she can appeal outside the Democratic heartlands if she continues to campaign as well as she did over the last few days. But she again trailed Mr Obama among independents, and there is little doubt that, as long as it keeps rolling, Mr Obama's now slightly less shiny bandwagon makes an appeal to new and nonpartisan voters that Mrs Clinton, for all her strengths, simply cannot match. Even in New Hampshire, Democratic voters think Mr Obama has the better chance in November.

Whether Mr Obama would have the better chance if the Republican nominee is John McCain is, however, a big question. Mr McCain appeals to independents too, and he would fight Mr Obama all the way on national security issues. As in 2000, though in very different political circumstances, the Arizona senator swept to victory in New Hampshire on Tuesday. Yet the party establishment and the conservative right still mistrust Mr McCain. It is possible that, as in 2000, the New Hampshire win is his high-water mark. Much depends now on whether he can win in South Carolina later this month. But even that will not be conclusive. After the two early contests, the Republicans are still a party in search of a candidate.

That is not a problem that the Democrats face. They have three frontrunners who are all candidates of the right stuff. High Democratic turnout and even higher enthusiasm in both Iowa and New Hampshire continue to point to a Democrat winning in November. But the voters in New Hampshire clearly said that they want the argument about who that candidate should be to continue. It is good advice for us all.