The night's first surprise
Manchester, N.H. -- There may be others. But based on what most polls were showing leading up to today's New Hampshire primary, few would have predicted the Republican race would get called by the networks before the Democratic one.
Virtually all the surveys showed Democrat Barack Obama with a solid lead; Republican John McCain with a less solid one. Yet McCain jumped to an early, clear lead in the initial raw vote count, and he was quickly declared the GOP victor. Among the Democrats, Hillary Clinton took the early lead in tabulated ballots, and the race seemed likely to be too close to call for a while.
You can view the final poll results here for the Democrats and here for the Republicans.
-- Don Frederick
Andrew Malcolm's immigrant parents repeatedly stressed the importance of active participation in a democracy. Early lessons included learning the alphabetical list of states by watching televised roll calls of national political conventions. That childhood exposure led to a lifelong fascination with politics, including 40-plus years of covering them and a brief stint practicing them as press secretary to Laura Bush in 1999-2000. A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Malcolm served on the Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.
Johanna Neuman is a veteran Washington correspondent for both The Los Angeles Times and USA Today, having covered presidents and politics as far back as Ronald Reagan. A former president of the White House Correspondents Assn., she authored a book on media and foreign policy, “Lights, Camera, Wars.” Most recently she was co-author of the 
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Just shows what a bunch of hot air the "expert" pundits are blowing in an attempt to earn their inflated salaries. They were predicting an Obama win based on one town of 17 people and playing up stories of Hillary throwing in the towel, all Hollywood going with Obama (good to see them red-handed in their fickle hypocrisy). Huckabee and Edwards' shmaltz played well in Iowa, but New Hampshire's more independent-minded people are choosing McCain and Clinton, two of the oldest candidates, contrary to the mantra "young is in." Although it's hypocritical that Hillary has been singled out for a passe baby boomer more than Edwards, when she's only a few years older and the same age as his wife.
Neither white-break cowpokey Iowa, nor the Granite State have significant numbers of minorities or the issues they bring with them: challenges in healthcare and education, crime and gangs, interracial tensions and immigration vs. security. Nor do they face serious congestion, pollution, and a crash in local and state revenues from plunging real estate prices and an excess in subprime loan rates. They have NONE of the issue that beleaguer Calif., NY, FLA. TX, NM, and even many Souther states -- all issues that Rudy and Hillary have the most experience dealing with.
So the race is still wide open, and the pundits and media should stop annointing Obama, Huckabee and the flavor of the moment -- this is a marathon, and one with more options than we've seen in any race in a long time.
Posted by: janet | January 08, 2008 at 06:44 PM
It looks as though she won. I guess when you cry on tv........it brings out support from those who actually believe what she says. She's a piranha. After she cried.......she started attacking Obama, but the major networks didn't show that. Oh well, you win some and lose some. She'll live another day........but as long as her "I did not have sex with that woman" lying husband is pulling for her, she'll never get my vote. Go Obama, slay Hillary!
Posted by: mike | January 08, 2008 at 08:33 PM