This post first appeared at Jacobin.

Always in a tone of cool neutrality, a “just the facts, ma’am” report from reality. Which seems to mask a deeper attachment to the reality it purports to describe.

Bernie Sanders won the New Hamp­shire Demo­c­ra­t­ic pri­ma­ry last night.

Edith Whar­ton described it best:

The blast that swept him came off New Hamp­shire snow-fields and ice-hung forests. It seemed to have tra­versed inter­minable leagues of frozen silence, fill­ing them with the same cold roar and sharp­en­ing its edge against the same bit­ter black-and-white landscape.

Some fas­ci­nat­ing tid­bits about the Demo­c­ra­t­ic pri­ma­ry vot­ers from the New York Times exit poll:

72 per­cent of the vot­ers said that the can­di­dates’ issues were more impor­tant to them than the can­di­dates’ lead­er­ship or per­son­al qual­i­ties; only 25 per­cent of the vot­ers said that the lat­ter was more impor­tant to them. This con­firms what Jede­di­ah Pur­dy argued in an excel­lent piece con­trast­ing Sanders’s can­di­da­cy with Obama’s can­di­da­cy. Obama’s cam­paign was about him; Sanders’s cam­paign is about the issues.

per­cent of the vot­ers said that the can­di­dates’ issues were more impor­tant to them than the can­di­dates’ lead­er­ship or per­son­al qual­i­ties; only per­cent of the vot­ers said that the lat­ter was more impor­tant to them. This con­firms what Jede­di­ah Pur­dy argued in an excel­lent piece con­trast­ing Sanders’s can­di­da­cy with Obama’s can­di­da­cy. Obama’s cam­paign was about him; Sanders’s cam­paign is about the issues. 68 per­cent of the vot­ers described their phi­los­o­phy as either ​ “ very lib­er­al” or ​ “ some­what lib­er­al.” 31 per­cent said it was ​ “ mod­er­ate” or ​ “ con­ser­v­a­tive.” What’s inter­est­ing about this data — beyond the left­ward shift it marks — is that inde­pen­dents are allowed to vote in Demo­c­ra­t­ic pri­maries in New Hamp­shire. In this pri­ma­ry, 41 per­cent of the vot­ers were either inde­pen­dents or unde­clared. That we get that kind of ide­o­log­i­cal skew in a pri­ma­ry that includes inde­pen­dents, who are often reput­ed to be mod­er­ates, is telling.

per­cent of the vot­ers described their phi­los­o­phy as either ​ very lib­er­al” or ​ some­what lib­er­al.” per­cent said it was ​ mod­er­ate” or ​ con­ser­v­a­tive.” What’s inter­est­ing about this data — beyond the left­ward shift it marks — is that inde­pen­dents are allowed to vote in Demo­c­ra­t­ic pri­maries in New Hamp­shire. In this pri­ma­ry, per­cent of the vot­ers were either inde­pen­dents or unde­clared. That we get that kind of ide­o­log­i­cal skew in a pri­ma­ry that includes inde­pen­dents, who are often reput­ed to be mod­er­ates, is telling. 63 per­cent of the vot­ers want to replace the cur­rent health care sys­tem with a sin­gle-pay­er plan.

per­cent of the vot­ers want to replace the cur­rent health care sys­tem with a sin­gle-pay­er plan. Only 16 per­cent of the vot­ers said they were get­ting ahead finan­cial­ly (as opposed to keep­ing steady or falling behind); Clin­ton did her best among those voters.

per­cent of the vot­ers said they were get­ting ahead finan­cial­ly (as opposed to keep­ing steady or falling behind); Clin­ton did her best among those voters. 80 per­cent of the vot­ers said they were very or some­what wor­ried about the econ­o­my; Sanders won near­ly two-thirds of those vot­ers. 20 per­cent of the vot­ers said they were not too wor­ried or not wor­ried at all about it. Clin­ton won 57 per­cent of those voters.

per­cent of the vot­ers said they were very or some­what wor­ried about the econ­o­my; Sanders won near­ly two-thirds of those vot­ers. per­cent of the vot­ers said they were not too wor­ried or not wor­ried at all about it. Clin­ton won per­cent of those voters. Only 10 per­cent of the vot­ers said ter­ror­ism was the most impor­tant issue for them.

per­cent of the vot­ers said ter­ror­ism was the most impor­tant issue for them. 48 per­cent of the vot­ers decid­ed upon their can­di­date in the last month. That sug­gests the race is still very flu­id and that it is not until the cam­paigns come to the dif­fer­ent states that vot­ers real­ly set­tle upon their choices.

The best com­ment of the evening, though, goes to my CUNY col­league David Jones, who is pro­vid­ing com­men­tary to the New York Times:

Even so, there were a few sil­ver lin­ings for Mrs. Clin­ton.… And, though Mrs. Clin­ton lost near­ly every income group, she did car­ry vot­ers in fam­i­lies earn­ing over $200,000 per year.

Remem­ber, back in 1992, Bill Clin­ton placed sec­ond in the New Hamp­shire pri­ma­ry, and he declared, ​“New Hamp­shire tonight has made Bill Clin­ton the Come­back Kid.” Twen­ty-four years lat­er, Hillary Clin­ton places sec­ond in the New Hamp­shire, and her cam­paign declares, New Hamp­shire doesn’t matter.

Or maybe it does. Politi­co reports that after her stun­ning loss, Clinton’s cam­paign is get­ting a facelift:

Now, after a drub­bing so seri­ous as to call into ques­tion every aspect of her cam­paign from her data oper­a­tion to her mes­sage, the wound­ed front-run­ner and her allies are active­ly prepar­ing to retool their cam­paign, accord­ing to Clin­ton allies. Staffing and strat­e­gy will be reassessed. The mes­sage, which so spec­tac­u­lar­ly failed in New Hamp­shire where she was trail­ing by 21 points when she appeared before her sup­port­ers to con­cede to Sanders, is also going to be reworked — with race at the cen­ter of it. Clin­ton is set to cam­paign with the moth­ers of Trayvon Mar­tin and Eric Gar­ner, unarmed African-Amer­i­cans who died in inci­dents involv­ing law enforce­ment offi­cers and a neigh­bor­hood watch rep­re­sen­ta­tive, respec­tive­ly. And the cam­paign, sources said, is expect­ed to push a new focus on sys­tem­at­ic racism, crim­i­nal jus­tice reform, vot­ing rights and gun vio­lence that will mit­i­gate con­cerns about her lack of an inspi­ra­tional message.

In 1992, the Clin­tons also ran a cam­paign with race at the cen­ter of it. Only then, the point was to get as far away from African-Amer­i­can vot­ers as pos­si­ble. They did it by talk­ing tough on crime — and then act­ing tough on crime. And, yes, Hillary Clin­ton was at the cen­ter of it all. As Don­na Murch writes in an epic piece in the New Repub­lic:

Hillary strong­ly sup­port­ed this leg­is­la­tion [Clinton’s crime bill] and stood res­olute­ly behind her husband’s pun­ish­ment cam­paign. ​“We need more police, we need more and tougher prison sen­tences for repeat offend­ers,” Hillary declared in 1994. ​“The ​‘three strikes and you’re out’ for vio­lent offend­ers has to be part of the plan. We need more pris­ons to keep vio­lent offend­ers for as long as it takes to keep them off the streets,” she added. Else­where, she remarked, ​“We will final­ly be able to say, loud­ly and clear­ly, that for repeat, vio­lent, crim­i­nal offend­ers: three strikes and you’re out.”

It’s one thing to walk back your poli­cies on race and crime because the elec­toral winds are blow­ing in the oth­er direc­tion. But to piv­ot so shame­less­ly from one cam­paign in which you made war on black Amer­i­ca your sig­na­ture issue to anoth­er in which you make fight­ing racism your cam­paign brand — sim­ply because you’re los­ing in the pri­maries (any­one who thinks Clin­ton would be retool­ing her cam­paign like this needs to read the piece I linked to above) — is, well, a lit­tle breathtaking.

The more Sanders wins, the more the lib­er­als will tell you he can’t win. Always in a tone of cool neu­tral­i­ty, a ​“just the facts, ma’am” report from real­i­ty. Which seems to mask a deep­er attach­ment to the real­i­ty it pur­ports to describe. It reminds me of how Lin­coln char­ac­ter­ized Stephen Douglas’s embrace of pop­u­lar sov­er­eign­ty: ​“This declared indif­fer­ence, but as I must think, covert real zeal for the spread of slavery.”

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