I am delighted to have this conversation with seema mehta, covering the 2020 election for the l. A. Times. She previously covered the 2012 and 2008 and 2016 president ial elections. James pindell is covering 2020 for the boston globe. He is an onair political analyst for New Hampshires wmur tv and a commentator for outlets such as cnn and politico. Patrick griffin is also a cnn commentator, longtime New Hampshire political strategist, a visiting fellow at the center for the political future, and a fabulous teacher. He advised president george w. Bush and recently served as a Senior Advisor to New Hampshire governor chris sununu. My friend mike murphy, veteran the codirector of the center, veteran of five president ial campaigns, and numerous campaigns for senators and governors, including Arnold Schwarzenegger and mitt romney. Patrick, i will begin with a question. At least, we are going to start with you. A lot of critics think New Hampshire, with its lack of diversity, should never be the first primary state. What is your response to that . Will this ever change . Show less ever change . Patrick my response is it will never change. We can talk about that for a second. There is a great amount of hostage taking, malfeasance, holdups, everything but cash changing hands, in order to keep New Hampshire first. I say that with great respect. I think there is an important part of the New Hampshire primary, but more than anything, why is there a New Hampshire . Because New Hampshire says so at this point. They simply will not give this primary up. They have enacted legislation to keep it. They have fought with iowa. Now they and iowa are in a cabal together to keep New Hampshire first and iowa second. There shall be no light contest within the seven days before and after the contest. Bill gardner who is secretary of the state runs things in New Hampshire with an iron fist. He is good about making sure he was prepared to hold the election christmas eve, new years eve, or valentines day to make sure New Hampshire goes first. The other answer to that question is New Hampshire is extremely homogenized. It does not look like america. It is largely white. It is, frankly, not as conservative on the republican side as it could be representing other states, and it is not as liberal on the democratic side. The Largest Group of voters in New Hampshire are independent voters. That means on election day, you can poll a ballot from either call a ballot from either party. The basis of both parties have bases of both parties have an opportunity to vote after being organized, as one woman said in a focus group said, i never voted for a candidate i havent danced with at least twice. It is a small state. 1. 3 million people. You can drive the length and width of the state easily. It makes for great television, because there are high snowbanks and everyone gets to have a bean jacket and everyone from new york and washington looks like they are on a camping trip. The optics are great from a television standpoint, but at the end of the day, New Hampshire does not look like america. It is there because it is plucky. It will not let go, and it forces people like joe biden to trudge through and put up with what he is going through. The front runner in a new poll today is having a tough time. What does that mean . It means members of congress, u. S. Senators, governors who are famous have to do a bit having a tough time of scraping with the locals and practice retail politics. Somehow, we believe that makes them a better candidate. At least that is the argument. The short answer to your question after all that, i dont think it changes. I think the press is in love with covering New Hampshire. Part of it is tradition. The other piece of it is the humiliation factor that even the strongest candidates are put through in a place where you have to stand on a snow bank and answer the 15th question about the International Monetary fund patiently. It is not easy. [laughs] james, i was going to ask you. James the criticisms of New Hampshire are completely legit. I am about as bought in to the system as possible. I am someone who went to college in des moines because of the Iowa Caucuses. I am about as biased as you can be on New Hampshire. I say that as a journalist. The criticisms are real and they are completely legit. They are not diverse states. They are largely rural states in a time where america is becoming increasingly urban. It frames the conversation around issues that may not be as relevant to most americans. Yes, we were expecting record high turnout in the democratic primary in february, officially the date hasnt been set, and that would be about a quarter of a million people, maybe 275. California has 40 million people. In terms of perspective, it has an outside influence. The criticisms are real. But when we have this conversation, what bothered me about it you will hear me say this a lot tonight as opposed to what . That is what we should be talking about. We can talk about the endless criticisms, but a couple dates matter. 1960 matters. 1916 matters. Ill be very quick. 1916 matters. Out of the progressive era, we decided these private clubs that are political parties, we should open that up more. We started having primary elections. They didnt really matter that much. The three states that start of started off the process New Hampshire was not first. Minnesota and indiana were the first, but then you elected delegates. You did not elect president s. You didnt elect a candidate, you elected delegates. That changed in 1952 in the modern era of the primary, when you did elect president s. Some candidates, not all, did campaign. Another important date is 1968, particularly the democratic primary. You may know your history, the famous chicago convention. Lets remember what happened. In New Hampshire, lbj was reduced to 60 of the vote. He won, but mccarthy got close to 40 . As a result, two weeks later, lbj said he would accept the nomination. He wouldnt pursue or accept the nomination. What happens in 1968. Only 14 states hold primaries that year. Think about that. Only 14 states. They would trudge through. Eventually, Bobby Kennedy got in the race. Later on, humphrey got in the race, but the idea is these candidates in these two primaries, worked not the person to be nominated. It was humphrey, and they said it could never happen again. As opposed to what . The Party Insiders still decided. They still decided Vice President humphrey was going to take over. They changed it again. They said ok, here is what we are going to do. Basically in 1972, into 1976, we will create iowa and New Hampshire. We will let the people decide. Now, we have more states every state gets involved. As opposed to what . Party insiders who are not represented at all . Then the mythology of 1976. Jimmy carter, the one person who created this mythology that you can be this random person, the peanut farmer from georgia, and be elected president. Now we have today. Ill shut up in just a bit. Here is where we are today, that New Hampshire is still iowa is first. Still first. Their clout has significantly diminished. They may remain first, but we are witnessing the most nationalized president ial primary season i think we have seen in the modern creation of the last 40 years of this latest iteration. Consider the dnc qualifying rules for how you qualify in a debate. In the last debate, there were 20 qualifying polls. 12 were national polls, which were completely irrelevant. They decided they wanted to have these polls count. Obviously, the campaign does not take place in kansas. Lling people in kansas . It does not take place in texas. New hampshire may persist. The clout is diminishing. Two little things. I share the skepticism of having two really white states pick our president s. As i started this process am i said that. I think there are two things that buffer it. After iowa and New Hampshire, you have South Carolina and nevada. South carolina has a Large Population of africanamerican voters. Nevada has a growing population of latino voters. I think there is that helps address the diversity issue, and beyond that, i grew up in the east coast in pennsylvania and lived in california for more than 20 years. Large states where campaigns are run on tv. Going to iowa and New Hampshire and seeing barack obama or mitt romney or jeb bush or whoever, 20 feet away from you talking to real people, you would never see that in california. Or a lot of these other large states. It makes the candidates even if they have the most money the most name id in the world, it makes them talk to voters. The voters are smart and relish their duty of asking tough questions of these candidates. They throw a softball here and there, but it also gives a chance to candidates that dont have money. I wonder if the 2008 campaign with the hillaryobama competition in iowa, if that was in california, with that result be possible . I dont think so, because hillary was so well known and obama was able to meet voters and generate excitement and pulling off a surprise win that gave other people in the country fate that, we have this nearly allwhite state is willing to vote for an africanamerican man for president. I dont know you could have that outcome in a large state with a huge tv presence. Do you have something quick before we move on . Michael ive got about an hour on this. [laughter] michael it is an arms race here. I agree with seema. If you take the first four, iowa caucus, New Hampshire, South Carolina and nevada that four is the lever on the process. It does become pretty diverse. You get rural, new england, christian conservatives and evangelicals representing iowa, you get a huge africanamerican vote in the South Carolina primary. If you clump them together, both regionally and diversity, pretty balanced. The other point would be is the other way to do it is totally nationalize it. The problem is, the more famous you are, the better you do. This lets a smaller candidate have a shot with less resources on an entrepreneurial basis to crack the thing and get momentum. I disagree with james a little bit. I think they will be influential. I agree with him on is it has become nationalized, but the states upon which the National Contest is mostly played is the last 60 days in the iowa caucus, which we are about to begin, and then the turbulent eight days later in New Hampshire through the nevada caucus into South Carolina. It is a little more of a hybrid. They are not as isolated as before, but they are still the voters that count 100 times more than any of us. James let me be clear when we get to the voting, they could be hugely important. I am talking about the process with which we get there. And the qualifying. Especially the dnc james if you dont win in these early states, you are done. I want to turn from whether New Hampshire is ideal or not, because i dont think it is ever going to change. New hampshire and iowa are both arguably battleground states. The party that tries to take away their first caucus or their first primary is going to do very badly in the general election. I just dont think it is going to move. I want to handicap the nature primary as of today, first about how much trouble biden is in. He just fell into third place in the new cnnunh poll at 15 . Beyond that, is warrens momentum likely going to be sustained, and is sanders likely to repeat his success in 2020 . Sanders won with 22 of the margin. He got 50 . It was the largest margin of victory since jfk. It is huge. He started with such a head start. He has an enormous Steering Committee that was actively meeting every month beginning in 2017. I mean, he started with such a head start, but a lot of that energy is now going to other people. Clearly, it was either hillary or bernie. He is still very much in the game. There is no question about it. I feel this is a state, despite the ups and downs, is framed as a state that either warren or Bernie Sanders is going to win. If you look at history, the new england candidate has won every single time, except for once. Ted kennedy challenging the president in 1980, but that was the only time they have lost. That said, iowa could likely have someone who is elevated if that person is not warren or sanders. That person is going to be a major contender coming into the state. That is where things on the top level stand and i think it gets more interesting. What happened to biden . Mike biden started out by hacking conventional wisdom by being famous enough to have a National Lead in early polls. They are like a noise meter on last weeks media coverage. Because biden was famous, that was his initial advantage. If i was head of the prc, i would bribe media pollsters. Those set the tempo for press coverage and Everything Else. Back to the first question, once you get to the small arena, the iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary, the buttigiegs, the warrens can show up and start to sell tickets. Biden, for all his strengths and he still has some has had the burden of being front runner in the competitive markets where people slowly know about candidates, he is not faring as well. Buttigieg has emerged as kind of the biden understudy, should biden finish third in iowa, which i think is a possibility. Remember, he is supposed to be superman, but if you cant lift warrenotive, not only is him of the real biden slayer in iowa, there is someone else room for someone else to come racing into New Hampshire. In New Hampshire, you have a big independent vote. I ran mccains campaign in 2000. We didnt carry republicans with george bush. We were competitive. It was not that close. We destroyed with independents who crossed over. I look at events in iowa where i see a lot of volvos in the parking lot. I want you to talk about this because youve suggested buttigieg is not only surging in iowa, but has real potential in New Hampshire. Why is that . I think this is a game of expectations. This narrative takes a while to play out. The media starts covering places like iowa and New Hampshire very, very early. Our Attention Spans today are very different because of this. Back in the days before we could instantaneously receive not only the news we wanted to hear, we and be told when the news has sort which could news we choose to believe. We filter a lot of this stuff. The expectation game gets dragged out over a long period of time. The race starts after the election, immediately. Who makes the first visit to iowa and New Hampshire . That expectation game continues for a long period of time. 17 people, that is a big crowd for someone who has never been famous before. That is a lot of people. Compare it to what happened three years ago. I dont want to play that game. Because New Hampshire is a bit of an enigma. We all like to think about someone who talks like the person i just spoke about. That is not really what New Hampshire is anymore. Most of those in southern New Hampshire are people who work and live in massachusetts. Many of them commute to boston, they come to New Hampshire because they want to income tax and they read the globe, the largest selling newspaper in New Hampshire. The fact is, it is a very different place. New hampshire was always a place that cherished its independence. A newspaper called the New Hampshire leader called the shots. They hated democrats. They loved republicans, except the republicans they hated. And they really hated them, but that has changed. The influence of newspapers as a medium has changed. The influence of local newspapers has changed, but more importantly, the influence of expectations doesnt, which is why murphy and i talk about this a lot. Iowa begets New Hampshire. I wont use your exact language, murphy New Hampshire has one job, to basically screw iowa after the Iowa Caucuses. They tend to set things right. First thing, iowa picks corn, New Hampshire takes precedents. You have to wrestle with somebody to get to join your team. The expectation is, coming out of iowa, there used to be three tickets. You tried to get three tickets out of iowa. New hampshire weaned it down to two. That has changed. The conventional wisdom is very different now. Does anybody think Bernie Sanders is going anywhere in this race if he doesnt win iowa or New Hampshire, which he very well could . Bernie is making 1 million a week in small dollar tradition