A month ago I pointed to some patterns which have shown up in the 2012 primary cycle which suggest to me that the digital news revolution (which is really a nationalization of news) may be changing the role early primary and caucus states have played in US politics for forty-plus years.
Put simply, the old idea was that these smallish states were largely self-contained political news worlds where a kind of intensive, organization-heavy politicking ruled the day. Because of this, each was its own little contest, in which a different set of candidates might catch fire. But multi-platform, 24/7 political news and chatter is now so pervasive that these different battles don’t look that distinct.
It doesn’t speak directly to this issue. But Mitt Romney looks to be doing pretty well in South Carolina. He has a solid lead. But political hands in the state tell our Evan McMorris-Santoro that Romney’s managing to do it with very little of the retail-style campaigning which has been so critical to past winners. We’ll have to see how it pans out. But I think this is part of the same trend.
