Clinton may not hold on to her lead but she will do much better than I predicted and win or lose will rightfully be able to call herself the "comeback kid" as her husband famously did in 1992 when he finished a surprisingly strong second.
A revitalized Clinton campaign, especially if she can win Nevada, will make for an interesting split in South Carolina that could potentially allow Edwards to win in a three-way contest there.
Edwards will be "disappointed" with his 17% according to CNN but it is actually an impressive showing. Unlike in Iowa, NH has always been considered a Clinton-Obama race with Edwards a non-player. In 2004, riding far more hype coming out of Iowa than this year, Edwards placed fourth with 11% and went on to with in South Carolina. A second place finish in Iowa, followed by a 50% improvement over his 2004 showing in New Hampshire may not be enough to set Edwards up to win, but it certainly is the best he could have realistically hoped for.
On the Republican side, again I am amazed by the poor showing of Giuliani. He was never expected to win New Hampshire, but for a long time he was considered a realistic contender for second. Like in Iowa, until a month ago, Giuliani was never lower than 3rd in polls. He finished Iowa in a distance 6th and tonight he is in the fight of his life for 4th with Ron Paul and will likely place 5th after college towns come in later in the evening.
In Michigan, he may, if he's lucky, get 3rd but will almost certainly get 4th or less in South Carolina and a win in Florida for him, to me, now sounds like a joke. After all this, I don't see how he recovers for Feb 5 espeically with McCain in the race who will do well in California and other moderate states.
Clinton's impressive comeback tonight - even if she ends up behind by a few points - is exactly what she needed to recover and more than I and most expected. Watch for her to win Nevada and all but tie in South Carolina as a result.
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7 comments:
I told you to not count Clinton out yet. The ppl in NH likes Bill and it counts for something...
Listen to the voice of reason...
If Obama still gets the Culinary Workers endorsement, Nevada is a toss-up. If the union reverses course, and picks Clinton, it's all over.
This is probably the best thing that could happen to Obama actually. He was running the risk of flaming out before Super Tuesday due to the overexposure. With a very close second, he can still hammer away at the idea that the status quo isn't going to give up the power without a fight, he's still the underdog, etc. which seems to be his comfort zone.
A big win in NH would have put him as the clear front-runner and all the media's and competition's guns would have been pointed and firing at him for the next three weeks.
With Clinton's win, things should continue on at a slow simmer as anyone taking the negatives too far will create a sense of desperation.
The Culinary Workers could also endorse Edwards, watch for that.
Obama's challenge is that, unlike NH, most of the Feb 5 states are closed primaries which means independents can't vote.
At this point, all the experts and pundits (who are clearly smarter than I) have been wrong.
So for me, from here on out, I think it's time to put away the speculation, pull up a chair, crack open a beer, pop the popcorn and enjoy the ride. Trying to analyze this...who am I kiddin'. ;-)
Oh, and another thing, though it was just a day before the polls opened in NH, I still think Obama should have hit back hard at those allegations/attacks "about his judgment on the war" made by Bill Clinton.
Not addressing it (and not hitting back) was a clear turn in strategy for Obama since he was fantastic at Kicking Ass (on both Clinton and Edwards) a couple weeks prior to the Iowa vote.
Now that he hasn't, the fairy tale seems to be getting larger and larger. Time to address it Barack before it's too late.
The sheep aren`t sure which dog to obey.
President Giuliani is a wolf & shall take office by the end of this grand farce of an election.
911, bank failures and criminal government - he`s the man with the necessary experience (cover up).
Kids - if you do one thing this election cycle make sure to look up "Diebold" on the Internets.
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