KEY POINTS:
What happened? Even in this roller-coaster United States presidential campaign that admits no pause, let us stop for a moment to wonder how on earth Hillary Clinton pulled out the win over Barack Obama in the New Hampshire primary that almost certainly saved her candidacy from collapse.
He was a candidate transformed by his success in Iowa's caucuses a few days before, not so much a man as a movement.
"Something's happening," Obama would say, too confidently sensing a tidal wave of support that would sweep him all the way to the White House.
Then came the juddering shock, of which neither anecdotal evidence nor the final polling gave the slightest forewarning. But the lesson is clear.
In politics, if not in nature, tidal waves can be halted. But again, how?
I'm sure that the moment, shown again and again on TV, when the eyes of America's Iron Lady welled with tears, and her voice choked, had something to do with it. We knew she was tough, and fearsomely competent. But now the woman who never let her emotions show, had proved she was as human as the rest of us.
Maybe this caused women voters, one of Hillary's core constituencies, to return to the fold, after their flirtation with Obama in Iowa.
Undoubtedly, the powerful counter-attraction of the Republican John McCain to independents, who can vote in either primary in New Hampshire, also played a part.
Had McCain not been fighting for his own political life, independents might have voted overwhelming for Obama, just as they did in Iowa.
But I see it in classic historical terms.
An ornery and contrarian little state has again done its appointed job.
The New Hampshire primary is so important because its voters take their role so seriously. They hate being told what to do, they hate being seen as predictable. Instead their collective judgment has sent a message for which America should be profoundly grateful.
In 1968, New Hampshire told Lyndon Johnson the game was up.
In 1992 it awarded Bill Clinton a second-place finish, urging the rest of the country that for all his sins, the then Arkansas governor was worth another look.
A third example was 2000. By giving McCain a massive upset primary victory over George W. Bush, they gave the latter a taste of defeat - and sent America a warning. Don't blame New Hampshire that the country didn't listen.
This time the message is no less precious. By rescuing Hillary Clinton at the 11th hour, New Hampshire has served notice that an Obama coronation - which a victory for the Illinois Senator would probably have guaranteed - would be as unhealthy for the US democratic process as the Clinton glide to victory that for most of last year seemed pre-ordained.
Obama may yet win the nomination. The hope and excitement he generates, not least among young people, is remarkable. So is his extraordinary appeal across traditional political divides, and his ability to make the country feel good about itself at a moment of extreme doubt and self-searching.
All of the above remains true, unaffected by one very narrow loss (which the polls exactly predicted, until Iowa rudely intervened), and Clinton cannot match them.
But all of the above has also meant Obama has been given kid-glove treatment by the media. To read about him in the past few days, he comes across as a mix of Martin Luther King, JFK and Mahatma Gandhi. If that's still not enough star power, throw a dash of George Clooney into the mix.
But thanks to the absence of scrutiny, Obama is still a largely unknown quantity.
Strip away the fuzzy feel-good rhetoric and the substance of what he says is pretty banal.
Yes, as Hillary found out, experience and mastery of the issues are not everything.
But the notion of someone with just three years on the national stage as a US senator (and not a very distinguished senator at that) being catapulted into the most important job in the world, no questions asked, was always as absurd as an effortless dynastic restoration, achieved by a woman whose main claim to fame was being married to Bill Clinton.
New Hampshire has made sure neither will happen.
Yes, American presidential election campaigns go on for ever, and cost an obscene amount of money. But they are protracted and all-examining for a good reason - to provide the fullest possible audition of a candidate for a job for which no previous training can ever quite prepare him (or her).
Now, this confused and exhilarating campaign is even more confused and exhilarating than ever.
- INDEPENDENT
