If Iowa tests a candidate’s ability to generate media attention, New Hampshire reveals his or her ability to endure it. Along with canvassing New Hampshire, Democratic candidates also participated in CNN town halls and a televised debate. These media events — and the constant journalistic search to identify “momentum” — elevate the stakes of New Hampshire far beyond the number of delegates at play. Bernie Sanders scored a narrow victory on Tuesday over Pete Buttigieg, and a surprising, surging Amy Klobuchar, demonstrating not just their ability to win over New Hampshire voters, but to withstand the growing scrutiny from their competitors and the 24/7 news media.
But this isn’t just a frivolous media show. It’s a serious test. In fact, the tactics used to survive the spotlight themselves shed tremendous light on how candidates will approach the presidency at a time when hyper-partisanship and misinformation pose serious threats to democratic governance.
Recent American political history is filled with stories of candidates who have fizzled out under the partisan and media spotlight that has transformed electoral politics over the past 50 years. In 1972, the Democratic Party introduced reforms that shifted the nominating process from behind-the-scenes wheeling and dealing at the convention to open primary elections. That year, South Dakota Sen. George McGovern emerged out of New Hampshire as a surprise contender, propelling his candidacy forward with a combination of innovative media games and grass-roots politics.
The “new politics” of the 1970s reshaped not just political strategy, but also journalistic practices. This more media-driven and transparent primary process made campaign reporters significant conduits for relating information to voters nationwide, and they took their elevated position seriously. Having witnessed the lies of Vietnam and Watergate, a new generation of investigative reporters was determined to uncover the truth behind political spin and expose any hint of scandal by elected officials — even those tied to politicians’ personal lives.
In fact, Gary Hart, who got his start as McGovern’s campaign manager in 1972, became the first presidential candidate to fall victim to the personality-driven media politics he helped to inaugurate when allegations of marital infidelity derailed his 1988 presidential bid long before New Hampshire. Hart’s fall from front-runner status revealed how the media’s attention to ferreting out scandal — frequently with assistance from candidates’ political opponents — had reshaped what it took to make it to the White House. (Famed GOP dirty trickster Lee Atwater later recounted on his deathbed that he set up Hart to board the famed yacht Monkey Business with young attractive women.)
By the 1990s, the rise of the 24/7 news cycle forced campaigns to endure investigative journalism while trying to shape the nonstop commentary that proliferated on cable news and talk radio — a far cry from how campaigns had previously contended with traditional news reporting. They also couldn’t forget to craft a message that would win voters over at the same time.
In 1992, in New Hampshire, Bill Clinton got a firsthand look at how important that three-pronged strategy would be.
On Jan. 23, 1992, a supermarket tabloid, the Star, published a story about an alleged 12-year affair between Clinton and Gennifer Flowers, an Arkansas state employee and cabaret singer. Clinton’s media adviser George Stephanopoulos first responded by discrediting the charges, pressuring a reporter from the Associated Press to dismiss the story because it was simply “tabloid trash.”
When the New York Post ran the story with the headline “Wild Bill,” Stephanopoulos worked behind the scenes to convince individual reporters that the “Star story was not only irrelevant but wrong — and part of a plot,” he recalled in his memoir. Recognizing that conservative publisher Rupert Murdock owned both the Star and the Post, Stephanopoulos framed the story as an ideological attack driven by opposition to Clinton’s agenda, not exposure of actual misconduct.
But the story didn’t go away. Armed with a hefty paycheck from the Star, Flowers scheduled a news conference for Jan. 27, leaving the Clinton team with 72 hours to respond. The campaign decided on a ″60 Minutes” appearance to shape the narrative proactively. During an interview that drew a massive audience following the Super Bowl, Hillary Clinton held her husband’s hand and defended him. Sure, they had had “problems and difficulties” in the past, and Bill admitted to “wrongdoing” and “causing pain” in his marriage. But in a powerful performance, Hillary Clinton hammered home the point that she loved and respected her husband and honored “what he’s been through and what we’ve been through together.”
The next day on live television, Flowers told the nation about her affair with Clinton, offering taped conversations between the two as evidence. In response, Clinton’s “War Room” kicked its spin into high gear. Strategist James Carville criticized the news media for not verifying the tapes, making the story about the credibility of the source, not Clinton’s infidelity.
By weathering the first scandal of the campaign, Clinton’s team established what historian William Chafe classified as the “lasting model for how the Clintons would handle political conflict, including a process of dissembling, avoidance, and obscuring the truth.” When accusations of misconduct crept into the campaign, from questions about Bill Clinton avoiding the Vietnam draft to smoking but not “inhaling” marijuana to concerns about the couple’s real estate investments in Arkansas, the campaign followed the strategy of spin: deny, discredit and distract.
New Hampshire showed that this offensive and defensive strategy worked. While coming in second place to former Massachusetts senator Paul Tsongas, Clinton celebrated his survival as a win. “New Hampshire tonight has made Bill Clinton the comeback kid,” he proclaimed to a stirring applause with a smiling Hillary Clinton by his side.
But this strategy had consequences — ones that shape the very challenges that presidential contenders face today. Journalists saw the ways in which the candidate played loose with the facts, fueling constant suspicion during the campaign and then during his administration that Clinton was hiding something. Republican operatives like Mary Matalin hammered away at this idea with “Clinton Lie-a-Day” releases. Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh warned listeners about the threat of Clinton who used his “charisma and slick character to hypnotize his victims.”
This left Clinton fighting an exhausting — and endless — battle with the press, punditry and the GOP over his private conduct and character — debates that culminated in impeachment and did deep damage to his legislative agenda. It also incentivized a scandal-driven approach to media coverage and partisan politics, ultimately highlighting the extremes of political debate around character issues in ways that desensitized the public to allegations of presidential misconduct and sexual assault.
Now the Democratic presidential nominees have to overcome this partisan and media environment Clinton helped to usher in. They must navigate the constant search for missteps and misdeeds while also creating strategies for limiting the damage and sharing a positive message that connects with voters.
How they do that matters because the Democratic Party will face off against President Trump, who doesn’t just spin facts but flat-out ignores them. Challenging a president who blatantly and regularly lies and uses disinformation to divide the country will require the best communication tools available. It’s not just about evading or surviving scandal, anymore. It also is about how to excite voters, pull them out of partisan echo chambers and make them care about facts.
Bernie Sanders has harnessed the power of social media to build a grass-roots army of supporters, and this is evident in the New Hampshire returns. But his potential as a Democratic candidate — or that of Buttigieg or Klobuchar — might hinge on whether he can forge a media narrative that inspires, persists and cuts through the lies and insults flung by Trump.