Final New Hampshire Predictions

Well Iowa and Wyoming have come and gone with Huckabee and Romney each receiving a win. Now it's the "crusty," libertarian-leaning New Hampshire voters' turn to cast their ballots. While the fallout from Iowa was much less severe on the Republican side than I had predicted (i.e. Thompson and Hunter staying in, Romney not being too damaged), I will largely stand by my previous NH predictions. I still predict McCain to prevail tomorrow, but Romney cannot be underestimated. His ground game and GOTV efforts are second to none and he will benefit from these much more in New Hampshire's day-long primary than he did during the 30-minute Iowa caucuses.

Obama's huge win in Iowa will not help McCain's chances as many Independents (who can vote in either party's primary in NH) will vote for Obama to keep him alive and propel him towards the nomination. This is problem because McCain's most loyal voting bloc is composed primarily of Independents who might think Obama is more deserving of their vote.

These factors are sure to make tomorrow's election a nail-biter, but I am brave enough to make numerical guestimations:

The Numbers:

GOP

John McCain 33%
Mitt Romney 30%
Rudy Giuliani 12%
Ron Paul 11%
Mike Huckabee 10%
Thompson 4%

DEM

Barack Obama 40%
Hillary Clinton 31%
John Edwards 22%
Bill Richardson 7%

As I believe John McCain and Barack Obama will be the nominees come November, perhaps Sen. John Sununu (R-NH) was correct when-- in 1988 while serving as governor of New Hampshire-- he said, "Iowa picks corn; New Hampshire picks presidents."

Old Robert Byrd...

The longest-serving senator in history gives us his opinion on dog fighting:



Though he's right on this one, Robert Byrd is a very odd chap. He's simply senile.

Here are some other Robert Byrd clips. I strongly recommend watching them:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-V95eGgZbrU
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ocWuPkNLla4
http://youtube.com/watch?v=SNWbMGzT20c&mode=related&search
http://youtube.com/watch?v=0FIBJt-c2o0&mode=related&search
http://youtube.com/watch?v=RmY1g9dAfx8

The problem is that in West Virginia, Byrd can run for reelection and win until the cows come home.

With people such as Sen. Byrd and Sen. Ted Stevens being in national political spotlight so often these days, the issue of congressional term limits could become a fairly important issue in the future. In a nation handing over political domination to a younger generation extremely frustrated with the baby-boomers who have run the country for some time now, we very well may begin to see some policy in the future (likely not until 2012 or even 2016) that could essentially kick the baby-boomers out of Congress and prevent any future generation from abusing power as much as the boomers have.

We can, however, be sure that 2008 will not be that year. It is shaping up to be a race between Hillary Clinton and either Mitt Romney or Rudy Giuliani. Either of these races would present baby-boomers with ultimate final battle between the "Hipsters and the Prudes," as Camille Paglia's dichotomy puts it. If the political landscape in 2008 is still as it was in 2006, the Hipsters might just win this final showdown...