A rebellion in U.S. politics: After New Hampshire, the rethinking begins

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The twin victories of the outsiders Donald J. Trump and Bernie Sanders in the New Hampshire primary mark the end of the beginning of a long American presidential campaign that – without ceremony, without pause – now hurries on to a new furious phase, with new struggles and new stakes.

That was evident as the candidates hastily departed frosty New Hampshire, decamped for Sunbelt confrontations, and already – almost seamlessly – began the process of rethinking and recalibrating their profiles and their appeals for the twin nomination fights that will not soon be decided.

All that was evident Tuesday night as both Mr. Sanders and his vanquished Democratic rival, the once formidable former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, delivered election-night speeches that were at once aimed at thanking their supporters in the Granite State but also were carefully sculpted to the task ahead: appealing to the vastly different and more complex voters of the South and desert West, where the campaign now moves.

And it was evident on the Republican side, as Mr. Trump all but airily dismissed establishment candidates Governor John Kasich of Ohio and former governor Jeb Bush of Florida who turned in surprisingly strong performances and won the chance to compete in future contests. As little as a few days ago, both men were on the brink of disappearing from the contest.

"There are four or five Republican tickets out of New Hampshire," former governor John H. Sununu, who served as White House chief of staff in the George H.W. Bush administration and is regarded as the senior statesman of New Hampshire politics, said in an interview. "Now we know who has those tickets, and we know this, also: This is time for some of the rest of the field to serve the party and get out of the race."

Some of them, namely Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, businesswoman Carly Fiorina and surgeon Ben Carson, almost certainly will do that in the days ahead. Mr. Christie may be the first to leave. Even taken together, their campaigns have not gained traction, though Mr. Christie will be forever remembered for having ambushed Senator Marco Rubio in a stunning debate confrontation that deflated the Florida Republican just as he was poised to break through as the alternative to Mr. Trump.

But as Republican candidates depart, the party's greatest challenge persists and perhaps deepens: how to react to the outlaw candidacy of Mr. Trump, who has the opposition if not contempt of party leaders nationally. These party grandees recoil at Mr. Trump's anti-establishment rhetoric and fear that his nomination would endanger their prospects of regaining the White House and would put in peril the fate of Republican candidates for the Senate, House of Representatives and governors' chairs across the country.

For that reason, it was Mr. Sanders who in triumph spoke for both parties late Tuesday. "This," he said, "is nothing short of the start of a political revolution.'"

That revolution – an insurrection in both parties – very likely did not end in the Republican Party Tuesday and may well continue in the Democratic Party, though Mrs. Clinton in defeat still has claim on the support of leading members of her party and of the minority voters who increasingly are vital to a White House political coalition. She remains the favourite for the nomination, as Mr. Sanders has few opportunities to repeat his near victory in Iowa and his decisive victory in New Hampshire.

The pivot from New Hampshire to the contests that follow was evident in nearly every paragraph of Mrs. Clinton's concession speech, which bowed to important Democratic constituencies, particularly blacks and gays. But it also underlined the challenge Mrs. Clinton faces, for the size of her defeat in New Hampshire was as stunning as it was stinging. New Hampshire was, after all, the state where her husband mounted his comeback in 1992 and where she repeated that comeback by prevailing over Barack Obama in 2008 after being defeated by the Illinois senator in Iowa.

In her concession speech she showed more emotion, more passion, than perhaps at any time in her campaign. "I know what it is like to stumble and fall,"' she said. It was an echo of her remarks eight years ago, though that time it was victory rather than defeat she was marking. "It is not what happens when you get knocked down that matters. It is whether you get back up."

That message, and the challenge it implies, was shared by other candidates, particularly Mr. Rubio, stigmatized as robotic and over-programmed.

For this there can be no doubt whatsoever: The Republican insurrection continues. Mr. Trump regained the narrative of a "winner" (his favourite description) after finishing second in Iowa, and remains the central figure in contemporary GOP politics. His victory was decisive, his momentum is strong. Mr. Kasich and Mr. Bush remain underdogs in the next contests, where they have little on the ground and little natural support, and the two still must struggle against Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who now returns to territory populated with the religious conservatives who were the engine of his Iowa victory only eight days earlier, and Senator Rubio.

"I will work harder than anybody to make the changes that are necessary,'" Mrs. Clinton said last night, but those words also apply to Mr. Rubio and many of the other Republican candidates.

For her part, she inevitably will examine her campaign staff and re-evaluate the core of her message, a process that began Tuesday night. For two weeks, Mr. Sanders pilloried Mrs. Clinton as a tool if not protector of Wall Street, but Mrs. Clinton made it clear that as the campaign moves into its new phase she will emphasize the wage gap and distance herself from the financial interests that paid her big speaking fees.

This contest is far from over. In fact it has only begun. But its themes – rebellion against the status quo, skepticism of the political process and the figures who have profited from it, concern about social mobility and the power of the rich – have been firmly established. They are the soundtrack of the campaign, to be reprised from state to state until the midsummer nominating conventions, and almost surely beyond.

David Shribman is executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for coverage of U.S. politics.