The B-man certainly seems to have a lot of momentum.

Off-topic: Does anyone else suspect that candidate Wikipedia pages are mostly written by members of the candidate's staff? Sometimes they read a bit too much like press releases.

I dreamed last night that Clinton narrowly took the NH primary. She seemed so relieved and overwhelmed with the unexpected victory. I was happy for her.

Speaking from "on the ground" in NH, yes, I think we'll see Barack take the primary by a landslide. Never in my life have I seen people so avid about a candidate, even when I was a College Democrat for Bill Clinton in '92. He's got magic, at least right now.

I really admire, love, and respect Hillary, but a lot of Democrats are doing the math on this and realizing that, though she would be an amazingly competent and smart president, she isn't likely to win independent and Republican support in the general. And the buzz on the street is that Edwards' passion is a little too passionate - after the shoot-from-the-hip-and-ask-questions-never W era, a cooler-blooded candidate seems more attractive. All this plus Obama's ability to excite and mobilize people is adding up to tons of support for him from a wide cross-section of people, pragmatic progressives to mild conservatives.

I'm going to walk downtown now at lunch and try to get on TV. When you see me flash a peace sign, remember that it's really bunny ears.

Blue Hampshire

What is angering me is that Hillary seems to be setting forth a lot of specifics, based on her grasp of the issues, and Obama is flashing a smile and saying he's the agent of change, and will lead the children to the promised land, but I have not heard what he will do exactly, or what steps he would take on the various problems that a new president would inherit.

After watching Saturday's debate, I like Hillary more and Obama less and Edwards even less.

I'm am almost sure I'll vote for the Dem. nominee but I am tempted to sit it all out. An of course, whenever the Oregon primary is, it'll be a done deal.

The "specifics" approach Sen. Clinton is using is great to appeal to the cerebral part of teh electorate. This is what Mr. Kerry and Mr. Gore went for as well. There aren't enough eggheads out there to win an election based on specifics. Unfortunately, the teeming millions appeal to the broader messages: FDR's "The only thing to fear is fear itself"; JFK's "Ask not what your country can do for you..."

I do believe Obama will bring more than just "hope" and feel good messages. He's incredibly bright. He won't have an adminstration lackeys. The FEMA director will be someone with emergency management experience.

I wish I was lived in a country where specifics were all that mattered. Bush would have never won.

I too will vote for the Dem noninee, but living in Texas it won't count since Texas will go Repuglican even if their nominee smothers puppies on live television. The only way Texas would go blue is if the Republican candidate decided to mess with Texas.

I wish I was lived in a country where specifics were all that mattered.

Agreed. As I've said, I think Hlllary is brilliant and I wish this were a country that would choose her. But factors of personality and what I would call irrational dislike (others may see it differently) doom her campaign before it begins. It's not that she's not fantastic. It's just that she won't win.

I agree that Obama's stumping has been somewhat vague, but his platform contains more specifics. I don't like that his health-care plan is so limited, and his environmental policy isn't that progressive, in my view. What I respond to in him, though, is his judgement and brains. I think he would run his cabinet like an FDR 'brain trust' - he talks about assembling good minds to tackle problems. He's great at considering things from multiple perspectives. So I could vote for him not on the plans themselves, but the mind that would make the plans.

Also: even if the popular vote doesn't 'count' toward electoral votes...I still sure as hell want to know what it was. I hope that disheartening feeling doesn't stop anyone from chiming in to say 'not all of us...'

Obama has the charisma and he also has brains to go with it.

The only reason I would not vote for him is his views and mine differ. But I won't rend my garments if he gets elected.

Now, HILLARY, on the other hand....

(Miko, will McCain beat Romney in your state? And will somebody get ahold of Fred Thompson and remind him he's running for President? Sheesh.)

The Fox candidate match put me with Dodd...but he's out now.


Green for primary, Dem in November.

What is angering me is that Hillary seems to be setting forth a lot of specifics, based on her grasp of the issues, and Obama is flashing a smile and saying he's the agent of change, and will lead the children to the promised land, but I have not heard what he will do exactly, or what steps he would take on the various problems that a new president would inherit.

I agree and have been feeling this way for weeks now. It makes my vote today so much harder because I want really want to vote for Sen. Clinton but am unsure of her viability in the general election. Yea, Obamah has spacifics too but the miss the mark IMHO although I think either would be a fine president. Guess I will walk in the booth and just make my choice there. UGH, I'm going now before I change my mond again.

I've never lived in a state where the presidential primary was still undecided by the time it got around to us. This year, I don't get to vote until April, long after super-duper-ultra-giga Tuesday. I doubt that there will be any choice by then.

Miko, will McCain beat Romney in your state?

Yes, it looks like he definitely will, though it's hard to say by how much, probably 5-10 percentage points. My bet today is for this Republican result:

1. McCain
2. Romney
3. Paul
4. Huckabee
5. Giuliani
6. Thompson

I'm a little unsure around #3, though. Paul is a wild card. He will do better here than anywhere else in the nation, because there is a disproportionate number of libertarians in the state. Huckabee won't draw big numbers, but I'd expect a church-based vote for him. Giuliani is tanking badly, his reputation suffering, and I don't think people are thinking much about Thompson at all.

Apropos of not much, here's some (bad) video footage of Ron Paul supporters mercilessly heckling a fleeing Sean Hannity of FoxNews. Sometimes it's hard not to love those guys.

Bunnyfire, this is an honest question, not trolling, I swear: what is so different about Hillary that makes her so intolerable from your perspective? It seems to me that she is not significantly different in policy goals, voting record, or any other relevant criteria from the rest of the Democrats. My perception is that a Hillary Clinton presidency would have substantially similar outcomes for this nation as an Obama, Edwards, Richardson, etc. presidency. Now, I have my preference, and I'll vote accordingly, but I don't understand how there could be any major differences. How is she not like the others?

To clarify, in my mind, Hillary has just always seemed so... well, generic.

The only way Texas would go blue is if the Republican candidate decided to mess with Texas.

HUCKABEE CAUGHT LITTERING, ELECTORS REVOLT

I just saw a guy rollerblading down Broadway holding a "Ron Paul for President" sign.

WELL, i just got back from coffee break downtown in Portsmouth, where I stood with my candidate's crowd for a few moments. There's a big central square with three corners, and Hillary supporters have managed to garner all three corners and hold them all day. That hasn't stopped the Obama party, who found a good location in front of a prominent church. A convertible driving by with two people in pig costumes seems to have something to say, but it's hard to tell what. Signs saying "Tax Meat" don't really help. Paul's and Kucinich's people have a few straggly bands present. No Edwards folk that I could see.

If the Presidency were determined by honks, hand-waves, thumbs-ups and cheers, Obama would already be in the White House. Not only did every 4th car that went by indicate support, many of them had their own Obama swag in the car that they waved at us - T-shirts, signs. He's on quite a roll.

You know who is really on a roll? Rollerblading Ron Paul guy.

Thank you, I'll be here all night.

Funny thing, Obama's "FREE HEALTHCARE! WITHOUT EXTRA TAXES!" approach. Reminds me of the "MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR WAR! PLUS TAX CUTS!" of a few years back. Oh, yeah, before you all correct me, I know they promised that they would do X, which will make Y in the economy and make money miraculously fall into the government's lap (1. Tax cuts 2. ... 3. Profit!).

Hillary at least is consistent. Her message of "Let's be realistic, universal health care is gonna be crappy, and it's still gonna cost you, deal with it" might not be popular with the masses, but is one of the few which doesn't make someone with a basic grasp of logic and math puke.

Oh, Hillary's healthcare plan kicks Obama's healthcare plan's booty. Agreed.

I think Obama's tax plan is very admirable (basically, increasing taxes for those who can afford it), but ultimately it's not going to pass congress, even if the Democrats hold on to power there.

Funny thing, Obama's "FREE HEALTHCARE! WITHOUT EXTRA TAXES!" approach.

From the healthcare FAQ on Obama's website (link at bottom of this page):

Q. How much will it cost us taxpayers?
A. The Obama plan will cost between $50-65 billion a year when fully phased in.
Q. How will we pay for the Obama plan?
A. The Obama plan will realize tremendous savings within the health care system to help
finance the plan. The additional revenue needed to fund the up-front investments in
technology and to help people who cannot afford health insurance is more than covered
by allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire for people making more than $250,000 per year,
as they are scheduled to do.

I don't know what the breakdown is between the contemplated savings and the expiration of the tax cuts (though Hillary's plan says $50+ billion can come from the tax cut rollbacks).

Hillary's plan saves $110 billion, $54 billion from the tax cut rollbacks and $56 billion from various "savings". Among those savings is $35 billion from modernization of the health system.

I haven't explored the gap between Obama's $50-65 billion spending plan and Clinton's $110 bilion (and if that $110 billion is actually the cost, or if the savings create big surpluses).

To be honest, I'll be happy with either candidate and I'm just glad that both have large-scale plans for healthcare. Working out the nitty-gritty details now would be a waste of campaign resources.

Oh, and the numbers for Hillary's plan come from the pdf that's on the right hand side of the page that I linked to (here's a direct link to the pdf).

For those of you who missed it, Gloria Steinem's Op-Ed from the NYT this morning.

Not that my vote will matter that much, in either the primary or in the general election (ah, the double-edged sword that is living in NYC), but I find myself strangely torn about this election. Strange because I'm unused to being conflicted about which Democratic candidate to vote for. I don't trust either Clinton or Obama, for wildly opposite reasons. The former because she's my senator and I don't like what she's already done in the Senate, and the latter because he seems like such an unknown on so many issues that are so important to me. The experience vs. inexperience dichotomy is just leaving me more confused than ever.

What I will say for Hillary though, is that I personally went to D.C. to lobby her on the reauthorization of the Ryan White Care Act, and found her to be approachable, smart, informed, and genuinely caring on at least this one issue. I walked away impressed, more impressed by her grasp of what was at stake than by any other senator or representative I met that day.

On that same trip I had the most surreal experience in Texas Representative Joe Barton's office, involving cross-stitch and patriotism.

The difference between Hillary and Obama?

I would trust Obama to tell me the truth. I would assume Hillary was lying to me.

I would trust Obama to tell me the truth. I would assume Hillary was lying to me.
??? I don't understand ???

I still don't know of anything that would make Hillary behave differently from any other politician. I know of nothing in her record that would give me reason to believe that she is more or less honest than any other politician.

At this point in time, Hillary is ahead 40% to 36% with 29% of the precincts.

I dare not hope. . .

Ladies and gentlemen, I think we have a race.

Ladies and gentlemen, I think we have a race.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a winner. (at least in NH)

::happy dance::

I'm mostly for Obama (in any case, my state's primary doesn't count), but I'm glad Hillary won NH. Fuck that "OMG she finally broke down, she's emotionally incapable" bullshit.

Hillary is a great candidate but she CANNOT win the general election. Hello fail.

Hello Republican president...
*vomits*

Hillary is a great candidate but she CANNOT win the general election.

If the NH primary proved anything, it proved that pollsters and pundits are often completely wrong.

I am nervous about that also, pie, even though I'll vote for her. My mom just RECENTLY sent me some spam about the Clintons knocking off Vince Foster and all the other people that have gotten in their way. If she wins the nomination, god only knows what will come out of Swiftboatworld at her.

My fantasy is that Hillary and Barack have a secret agreement that the loser between them will agree to run for Vice President. Probably too much bad blood by now, though. . .

It's complicated. One thing that may have made an impact is a pretty freaking weird one, that I would never have imagined if I didn't live right in the heart of it. NH people are over-strategizing. On local talk radio this morning I heard a number of reasons why people who assumed because of projections that Obama would win handily ended up voting for someone else to make another point because they decided their candidate was doing fine without their vote. Among these points people wanted to make: Voting for McCain so as to encourage Romney, who is widely despised, to drop out; voting for Hillary to show that a woman can lead; viting for Kucinich to indiciate progressivism, etc. I came away wondering if NHites aren't trying so hard to game this system that they're actually screwing it up, in some ways - Using their vote not to straightforwardly support the candidate they want to see, but to make a statement.

It's hard to tell how widespread that factor is, though.

One really cool thing is that NH hit a historic high for voter turnout. One town near me had 85%, which is fantastic. It is a small town, so I had to ask "what were the other fifteen people doing?"

Some of you know I'm looking at all this from an odd position - I work in NH and live about 1 1/2 miles away, but over the river in Maine. I do most of my volunteering, working, and socializing in Portsmouth, but I can't vote there. So I've been piggybacking around to the events and definitely been into the dialogue, but was voteless in the state. I'll be casting my primary vote in a caucus for the first time in my life - I learned only this week that Maine uses the caucus system, and mine is on Feb. 10th. That oughta be interesting.

If the NH primary proved anything, it proved that pollsters and pundits are often completely wrong.

Sure, but my view of the matter isn't informed by either. Rather, it is my understanding that for reasons unknown to me, most people of even moderately right of center have formed the belief that Hillary is evil and vice incarnate. This is all the more confounding due to my perception of her as a rather bland political figure.