The New Hampshire primaries are underway, with the bets being placed on Obama and McCain to win.
On the Democratic side, Barack Obama is aiming to press home his advantage over main rival Hillary Clinton following his success in last week's Iowa caucus. John Edwards, Bill Richardson and Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel are also competing for the Democratic nomination.
Among the Republicans, John McCain and Mitch Romney appear to be the frontrunners, with both seeking a morale-boosting victory after rival Mike Huckabee claimed a surprise victory in Iowa. Fred Thompson, Ron Paul and Duncan Hunter also remain in the Republican race.
Today's consensus appears to be that if Hillary Clinton doesn't make a good showing here, she's in real trouble. She's not very exciting in public performances and debates, she has a lot of negative baggage, and her biggest hope was the Clinton machine creating an air of inevitability about her candidacy. That is certainly not the case now.
Obama is inexperienced, but clearly a very charismatic guy, and difficult to not like. With public approval ratings of both the President and the Congress at record lows, his slogan of "change" is striking a chord. So much of a chord, in fact, that all his opponents seem to have been copying him. Not bad for an alleged neophyte.
The less said about John Edwards, the better.
John McCain is, well, he is a tough guy who survived hell as a POW in Vietnam, and he's built a pretty unorthodox voting record, which means the GOP base doesn't like him very much. I don't think anyone can deny he is competent and qualified. The press likes him far better than the voters do, though. His age (71) will certainly be a factor, especially if he ends up running against Obama.
I'm not sure what to think of Mitch Romney or Fred Thompson, really.
Mike Huckabee, to me, is the worst of both worlds. He is a social conservative that isn't conservative in any other way.
The extremist-friendly Ron Paul and his tiresome spam-bots are just freaking me out. Luckily he is just an internet phenom, like LOLcats, but a hell of a lot less cute.
Update: This is quite interesting.
Rasmussen Markets data currently shows Obama with a 75.0
% chance of winning the Democratic nomination while Clinton has a 23.6
% chance. Among Republicans, the numbers are McCain 35.9
%, Giuliani 27.9
%, Mike Huckabee 15.3
%, Mitt Romney 11.8
%, and Fred Thompson 2.1
%. Numbers in this paragraph are from a prediction market, not a poll. The markets accurately projected Obama and Huckabee as the winners
I still think Guilani, though a competent and proven leader, may have too many scandals in his past, and possibly future, and it's not that easy to trust him. Besides, he doesn't have presidential hair.
8:29:23 PM 
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