Outflanked ... In The Middle?

This election season in New Hampshire feels more like November than February.

It feels more like a general election than a primary, CBSNews.com's Dick Meyer reports from the Granite State.

The battle lines are clear and the opposing camps easy to recognize. Running for Co-Presidents for the Regular Old American Political Party are George W. Bush and Al Gore.

Running for Co-Presidents of the Credible Mavericks Party are Bill Bradley and John McCain.

Certainly, these are tickets many independent voters might like to see. And independent voters are, of course, key to the real New Hampshire primary election Tuesday. There are some 265,000 registered Republicans in New Hampshire and 197,000 Democrats. But there are 275,000 voters registered as Unaffiliated. And they are the voters McCain and Bradley are courting.

Scholars argue that the numbers of New Hampshire independents are not that big, that many are really partisans who just don't like to say so on their voter registration forms. That may well true. But there is no question that there is some kind of independent-minded, anti-politics-as-usual voters that are attracted to the likes of John McCain and Bill Bradley.

That's why you see big clusters of McCain signs next to Bradley signs at snowy intersections.

That's why former Republican Senator Lowell Weicker of Connecticut, who became the Independent Governor of Connecticut, campaigned here with Bill Bradley.

That why pollster John Zogby says if Bradley's recent get-tough policy on Gore's record backfires on him, the beneficiary won't be Al Gore so much as John McCain. And since at least 11 different non-partisan polls came out the day before the election, pollsters have plenty of ammo to make their arguments.

We are more accustomed to a different dynamic in primaries, where the frontrunner is outflanked by a candidate further right or further left on the ideological spectrum. These frontrunners are forced to worry that placating primary voters on the Liberal or Conservative Party wings will alienate moderate or independent voters in the general election. Ted Kennedy and Jimmy Carter. Gary Hart and Walter Mondale. Bob Dole and Pat Buchanan.

This year, the flanking forces are heading for the middle ground (and they're trying to get there on the high road). Thirty-four states allow independent voters to vote in party primaries. The battle for independents in primary elections could well outlast New Hampshire. But in the end party loyalists dominate party primaries. And the Credible Maverick Party won’t be on the ballot come November.

By Dick Meyer, Washington Editorial Director, CBSNews.com