The Most Boring New Hampshire Primary Ever

Worth Clicking: Blasts from the past wound Romney

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January 09, 2012

The Most Boring New Hampshire Primary Ever

Walter Shapiro: "A Romney campaign appearance invites flights of fancy -- not because of the poetry of the candidate's words but because of the vacuity of the play-it-safe event... Romney's stump speech includes a patriotic reading of stanzas from America, the Beautiful, ostensibly to prove that no one (certainly not that Europe-emulating president named Obama) can match his star-spangled patriotism. Listening to Romney, though, I was mostly inspired to recall the great Senate filibusters of yore, when exhausted legislators would read aloud fragments of poetry and pot-liquor recipes to run out the clock."

"The sad thing -- for those of us who love the spirited competition and hairpin turns of traditional New Hampshire primaries -- is that Romney almost certainly will get away with his evasiveness. As a reporter chronicling his ninth New Hampshire primary (dating back to the days when George Bush boasted that he was "up for the Eighties"), I can recall no contested race in either party this devoid of energy. It feels like the primary is being conducted underwater, with every movement slow and exaggerated."

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Taegan D. Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country, including the Washington Post, USA Today, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer and Christian Science Monitor.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

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January 09, 2012