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- After some initial confusion, news organizations now seem to agree that Bill Richardson will drop out today. Maybe it was his lackluster debate performances or his essential lack of ideology, but I'd like to think he never caught fire because he insisted on calling himself a "pro-growth" Democrat -- as if there was some other kind (as Ezra pointed out last year). If you want a sense of just how shallow his policy understanding was read this interview he did with Ezra. Which candidate will this help? I don't know, but I'm pretty confidant it'll help America. Kate may be right that he pushed other candidates to adopt sensible energy policies, but he displayed either confusion or dishonesty at the last debate when he insisted that his plan wouldn't raise prices for consumers (Obama set him straight while explaining why both candidates' plans are a good idea).
- John Kerry will endorse Obama today.
- Chris Matthews continues to explore new, uncharted worlds of obnoxiousness when it comes to Hillary Clinton. And if blatant sexism is your taste in Hillary bashing try this video of a Fox News "expert" essentially saying Hillary lost Iowa because she's a shrew and then smirking in the face of irrefutable evidence that he's wrong. Bet he's not happy about the New Hampshire results.The guy even looks like a Neanderthal.
- Rachael Larimore notes how Clinton mostly uses "I" while Obama uses "we." I'm not sure her analysis after that is right though. Still, it's an interesting observation.
- On the Republican side Mitt Romney is puling resources out of South Carolina and Florida for a big push in Michigan. I guess he agrees it's the end of the line for him if he loses, but I'm not so sure. What if he came in second in every primary before Feb 5th? Assuming Huckabee and McCain split the firsts and thirds we could have a split result in the Feb 5th states and a... wait for it... brokered convention. As long as we're making bogus predictions they might as well be fun ones!
- Via Jake Tapper's sharp, frank, and new-to-me blog, it turns out Mitt Romney only leads in delegates if you don't count Iowa which you technically shouldn't (the delegates are picked later, but who gets how many is directly determined by the caucuses) but practically should. We know how many national delegates each candidate will get from Iowa and that's what should matter. Mitt Romney tell us less than the truth? Never!
- Finally, more awesome index cards from Jessica Hagey over at McClatchy. I like 3 and 10, and 8 is good too, if premature.
--Sam Boyd
