Hillary leads Obama 39.2 to 36.8 with 95% of the votes counted at midnight OK time. Edwards a distant third at 16%+ and Richardson trailing in single digits.
McCain bests Romney with Huckabee a distant third on the GOP side, but who cares.

Just shows what pollsters know. Or, rather, pundits who don’t notice that 15% were undecided 3 days out.

To show the oddity of 1) caring and 2) listening to what the media pundits tell us, consider that in November Obama was supposedly 18 points behind in N.H. and that his supporters would be overjoyed with a close second like this and have only been backing a “frontrunner” for five days.

I will refuse to believe any facile explanation because elections and campaigns are too nuanced for a bumper sticker to explain things. There are a couple of hundred thousand people, each with their own individual reasons for voting as they did. I think many independents who were going to vote for BHO decided they could “afford” to vote for McCain and against Romney and Huckabee or Guildiani as a result of Obama misplaying the “expectations” game. I think Hillary did a helluva good job over the past five days, even if some of it was inadvertant: 1) the “angry” moment in the debates and 2) the “tearful” moment on the stump; I think both were seen as gaffes by the press but as motivating moments for wavering women voters and this was badly misinterpreted by the commentators. I think she had a better organization in N.H., built on ties that go back to 1992, and that the “ground game” we heard so much about in Iowa is important in N.H. and primaries as well as farm state caucuses. Obama will have to get back to this basic to win South Carolina.

As long as Edwards stays in, and he still maintains he’s in to the finish, it’s a hash. No one has yet clearly established themselves, in my opinion, because this three way has seen no one break into a commanding lead anywhere. No state I know of has any of the three as a 50%+1 winner. As long as Edwards stays in, this could leave the convention “open” with multiple votes necessary to establish a ticket for the party. I wonder what happens if/when Edwards “releases” his delegates? Or does he make a deal with one of the other two? Why would he even think about another vice presidential campaign?

With only 16% in NH, Edwards is close to dead in the water, I think, and I also think he must win somewhere and somewhere soon. If that somewhere is South Carolina, it’s a tough go against a woman and a black. First, there aren’t that many white male Democrats in S.C. If black women vote their race instead of their gender, Obama looks very good and that’s where he has to make his stand. I think Hillary can count on a majority of white female voters in S.C., but that has to be one place where Edwards makes his play, so that will be a big fight. I think the Obama “bounce” after Iowa in N.H. was not as important as what happened in South Carolina, but I’m not sure what that was because I’ve seen no poll since Iowa from S.C. that tells me how much movement there has been among black voters of both genders. Because Bill was the “first black president”, and because the Clintons have close ties to all the party establishments in all 50 states, that means that Hillary locked up a lot of the black leadership in S.C. months ago, but that might have changed since Iowa and changed again since last night. Edwards has an economic populist message that will appeal to the S.C. black middle class and working class, perhaps. For long years now, we’ve become accustomed to talking about the evangelicals in the Republican party, but that doesn’t mean that the church is unimportant in the black community; many of their Democratic Party political leaders are also their church leaders. Hillary has talked about her earnest Methodism and Romney his Mormanism; perhaps S.C. is where Obama speaks as he does in his biography about his decision to become a Christian because what is said in churches across S.C. on Sunday will greatly sway their Tuesday ballots across racial lines. Since Obama is already facing a “Muslim” smear, he could hit two birds with one stone.

Bill Richardson long ago bet everything on Nevada, a cul de sac in the race prior to South Carolina. That’s his must win and it’s not looking good. Don’t know where his 4% goes, but 4% may be the spread between two of the top three. Supposedly the culinary union, representing many of the workers in the Nevada gaming industry, is ready to endorse Obama. That’s all I know about Nevada.

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