Yesterdays Has-Beens Are Back

With 91% of precincts reporting, it is safe to say that New Hampshire has been won by Clinton (~39%) and McCain (~37%). Yesterday they were in trouble or even footnotes of the 2008 race, today they are back in the driver’s seats.

But with New Hampshire voters on both sides of the aisle dipping into the discount bin, might that argue for the irrelevance of returns from a tiny, atypical little state to national trends?

Anyhow, Obama (~36%) meet expectations, even those inflated by his convincing Iowa victory. Edwards (~17%) underperformed but was unbowed during his post-vote speech (Now that’s 2 states down, 48 to go… 1% of Americans have been heard from, time to hear from the 99%), and Richardson at ~4% at least doubled his Iowa performance, so that’s progress, right? Kucinich (~1%) and Gravel (~0%) continued to dominate the left-handed vegan vote.

Romney (~32%) has fumbled two in a row, and this was where he was most likely to perform well. He’s got too much damn money to be out of it, but expectations of a win (somewhere other than Wyoming or a straw poll) are running high and he has to deliver soon. Huckabee (~11%) embarrassed Giuliani (~9%) in his NE stomping grounds, and Paul (~8%) embarrassed Thompson (~1%) and Hunter (~1%). I think Thompson and Hunter are campaigning solely on ego now.

Notwithstanding the outcome in New Hampster, The Democratic PCs of Arizona’s LD 28 had a straw poll this evening which Obama won handily. With 51 votes cast, the totals were:

Obama: 17
Edwards: 14
Kucinich: 9
Clinton: 8
Richardson: 3
Ron Paul: 1/2

Note that both Edwards and Kucinich beat Clinton. The 1/2 vote for Paul is really just a joke. One ballot noted that the voter fully endorsed Ron Paul’s foreign policy, even though they were voting for Kucinich, so I take a small liberty with interpretation of that ballot.

I must also be pointed out, however, that no liberties were taken with the ballot count. We practice what we preach: paper ballots were hand-counted by a Libertarian judge in public with an election board of 5 independent observers using voter intent as the standard for ballot interpretation. There wasn’t even a whisper of discontent about the fairness of the outcome.