Justus For All

Unlike Iowa, where I should have trusted the polls, I don’t see any reason to doubt the expected results from New Hampshire.

On the Democrat side it is Obama followed by Clinton and then Edwards. Clinton’s loss in Iowa has been magnified by her actions since, not unlike although to a lesser degree then Howard Dean four years ago. Clinton can still come back if she can recover from her downward spiral and hold on until Florida and California, but it is beginning to seem like her own behavior may present that from happening. Hillary is at her best when she is assured and feels in control, and at her worst when she feels personally threatened. Obviously right now she is feeling the latter.

On the Republican side it looks like McCain followed closely by Romney. Third place will be interesting though as some polls indicate Huckabee might beat out Giuliani for this spot. A third place finish in New Hampshire would be very good for the Huckabee campaign. Still though, it looks to me like the real winner coming out of New Hampshire will be Giuliani. He won’t have a clear single competitor with momentum at that point and that makes his large states primary strategy very viable. We may not know who the Republican nominee will be until well after Super-Tuesday though. It also seems to me that unless Romney pulls an upset and defeats McCain, his campaign has really no where to go. While by the numbers he would still seems strong (2 second places isn’t bad when no one has 2 firsts) his strategy was to gain momentum in the early primaries, without that he doesn’t have much.

Update:  Obviously my predictive abilities are not great.  Hillary is certainly back.