ROCHESTER, N.H.
It’s a generational theme trying to find two-lane traction in wintry New Hampshire: Granite State primary voters need to nudge the senior citizens who lead both parties off the public stage and turn the pressure-packed demands of national leadership over to younger figures with more vim, vigor, and vision.
Nikki Haley, a former United Nations ambassador, is pushing the political pedal on that theme as she tries to overtake Republican front-runner Donald Trump, while Dean Phillips, the Minnesota congressman challenging President Biden, is engaging those gears in the hope of sending Biden’s ghostly New Hampshire write-in campaign into a Granite State skid.
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Haley, who has proved more pillow-fighter than pugilist in this primary contest, toughened her approach after Trump, 77, went on a long disjointed Friday night ramble in which he confused her with former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, whom he falsely blames for failing to protect the US Capitol from his marauding MAGA mob on Jan. 6, 2021.
Haley has assumed the air of a daughter concerned with a parent’s increasing mental decline.
“He mentioned me multiple times in that scenario. The concern I have is — I’m not saying anything derogatory — but when you’re dealing with the pressures of the presidency, we can’t have someone else that we question whether they’re mentally fit to do this,” she said on Saturday.
She stepped up that critique on ”Face the Nation” on Sunday.
“He’s claimed that Joe Biden was going to get us into World War II,” she said. “I’m assuming he meant World War III. He said that he ran against President Obama. He never ran against President Obama. He says that I’m the one that kept security from Jan. … from the Capitol on January 6. I was nowhere near the Capitol on January 6. But … don’t be surprised if you have someone that’s 80 in office, their mental stability is going to continue to decline. That’s just human nature.”
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In trying to push this message in a way that amplifies concerns without also raising the hackles of Trump’s fellow leading-edge baby boomers, Haley faces not just the mockery of an opponent who demeans her as “birdbrain” and belittles her intelligence but also the MAGA movement’s convenient double standard when it comes to perceived senescence.
It’s an element of Fox-fired faith that Joe Biden is so deep in the ditch of his dotage that he’s incapable of running his administration, let alone the country.
Just imagine if Biden had suffered a senior moment equivalent to Trump’s, in which the former president said that “Nikki Haley is [sic] in charge of security” on Jan. 6, mentioning her twice in that context. It would have been offered as definitive proof that Biden was wandering lost in the snowy recesses of his own mind.
Sunday evening in Rochester presented a perfect opportunity to ask MAGA about Trump’s mental meanderings. A long line of his supporters filed into the Rochester Opera House, while a TV truck with a baleful canine riding shotgun drove slowly by playing the Lincoln Project’s Trump-targeting “God Made a Dictator” video.
They were troubled. Not by Trump’s instances of cognitive confusion, mind you, but rather by the mobile ad comparing their champion to infamous fascists of the past. As to Trump conflating Haley with Pelosi, well, no big deal.
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“Trump has never confused anything,” one woman declared.
“Nikki Haley seems to think that because she is young, she is smart,” said another. “I don’t like any of her answers.”
MAGA, of course, is not the audience Haley is trying to bounce off the Trump bandwagon, just as dedicated Biden backers are not the people Phillips is hoping to persuade with his criticism of the incumbent Democrat.
His critique of Biden, which Phillips unspooled at an afternoon event in Rochester, is both tougher and slyer than Haley’s criticism of Trump. He presents himself as a Biden appreciator — “I love Joe Biden” — but one candid enough to say publicly something he maintains other Democrats acknowledge only privately.
Describing his decision to challenge his party’s incumbent president, Phillips said: “I thought, why are my colleagues saying how afraid they are, seeing his decline in front of us, his numbers dropping precipitously, and then they get in front of the TV and lie?” Notice that with this formulation, Phillips introduces the notion that Biden is sliding into senescence without personally owning that observation.
The Democrats need a candidate who can win, “and the evidence indicates that Joe Biden cannot,” he said. “He is facing historically low approval numbers that no incumbent has ever come close to winning with.”
Never mind the competitive national polls; Biden simply can’t prevail in the all-important Electoral College, Phillips asserted — and that means that everything Democrats care about is on the line.
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As for the positive aspects of the congressman’s presentation, it’s basically peace and love and hugs, with some progressive catnip thrown in: Medicare for All, aka single-payer, plus investment accounts for young Americans, starting at birth and aimed at leaving them with $20,000 when they graduate high school.
Beyond the politics of cognitive decline, both opposition camps are also trying to kindle New Hampshire resentment against the two front-runners for ignoring the state’s time-honored tradition of meet-and-greet, question-and-answer, town-hall politics.
The president has not just given New Hampshire the high hat, he has had the Democratic National Committee make Biden-friendlier South Carolina the official start of the Democratic primary process. Trump, meanwhile, has no back-and-forth with voters but rather drops in from the sky for extended evening exercises in self-admiration.
Popular Granite State Governor Chris Sununu is busy pointing out the different approaches on the GOP side while Phillips blows on the glowing embers of the state’s first-primary pride — and presents his challenge as New Hampshire’s chance to signal its annoyance.
“Our president and our party somehow felt that this was not important,” he said. “But you are important.”
Good news for Phillips: At a Haley rally last week, I talked to one left-leaning voter who was piqued at Biden for that very reason. “Biden thumbed his nose at New Hampshire,” said Robert Kelley, an unenrolled voter from Weare. “That gave me a bad taste.”
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Bad news for Phillips: The alternative Kelley was considering was Haley, not the Minnesotan.
Although there were some genuine Phillips enthusiasts, several of those I spoke with at his Sunday event in the Lilac City seemed more curious than committed. They liked him, to be sure, but weren’t necessarily swayed by his argument that Biden was a certain loser.
“I guess time will tell and the voters will tell,” said Sue Veal, a Democrat from Rochester, who said she will write-in Biden in the primary but would consider Phillips if he ran again in 2028.
So what does it all mean? To my ear, the pass-the-torch tropes don’t appear potent enough to shake the bases. But they may find some purchase with those put off by the notion of another Biden-Trump general election.
Add that to the already ample reasons to expect that late-deciders will break away from the two front-runners.
This is a tough year to hazard a guess. But if the New Hampshire of today still bears a strong resemblance to the independent-minded Granite State of old, I’d expect a primary result that jump-starts the intra-party process — not one that leaves it to freeze.
Scot Lehigh is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at scot.lehigh@globe.com. Follow him @GlobeScotLehigh.
