Clinton Has Granite State Blues
Clinton team sweats NH. LAT: "In every other early voting state, Clinton has gained a comfortable lead. In this state, she has been unable to replicate the formula ... The Sanders team sees New Hampshire as its ticket to redefining the race."
Sanders snubs Mayor Rahm Emanuel in Chicago. W. Post: "'If the question is do I want or need Rahm Emanuel’s support for president, with all due respect for the mayor, no I don’t' ... When asked about Emanuel, Sanders pointed to [Emanuel 2015 opponent Chuy] Garcia, and said, 'This was my guy,'..."
GOP Leaders Worry About Trump
"If Trump wins the nomination, prepare for the end of the conservative party," says W. Post's George Will: "...by his embrace of Putin, and by postulating a slanderous moral equivalence ... Trump has forced conservatives to recognize their immediate priority ... prevent Trump from winning the Republican nomination in this, the GOP’s third epochal intraparty struggle in 104 years."
GOP leaders fear Trump and Cruz alternatives are dividing the NH vote. The Atlantic's Josh Kraushaar: "New Hampshire typically crowns an establishment favorite ... But the fear among party insiders in the state is that the verdict will be muted because support among the four center-right candidates will be badly splintered."
Breakfast Sides
Gyrocopter protestor to challenge Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz. W. Post: "[Douglas] Hughes said in an interview Wednesday he was 'very deliberately targeting' Wasserman Schultz’s district because Wasserman Schultz was the 'poster child of establishment politics on the Democratic side' ... He said she seemed to favor particular candidates and that it was problematic that she had scheduled fewer presidential primary debates than the Republicans, including some on Saturdays."
Sen. Mitch McConnell waging lonely battle for coal. Bloomberg: "[David] Doniger, the NRDC climate expert, says McConnell is waging a cynical—and ultimately losing—battle ... Doniger points to a speech in October delivered by [Charles] Patton of Appalachian Power in which the utility executive, a foe of the Clean Power Plan, conceded that in the long run coal can’t bounce back..."
