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- So, um, Hillary Clinton and John McCain won. It'll take a while before the political gurus parse the polls and figure out what changed (Steve Benen and Marc Ambinder round up some possibilities) and I'm certainly not going to try. Clinton won, that's what I'm confident of.
- The polls were very wrong about her numbers (but not Obama's), most likely because the movement toward her came late (after all, the polls pretty much nailed the Republican side so they're not all bad). And about 18 percent of Democratic voters decided on the day of the election (Josh Marshall defends them convincingly). At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if this goes around again a couple more times. Obama has a decent shot at Nevada. A win for him there would flip narrative again and that might give her a win in South Carolina.
- Also note that the lack of movement in Obama's numbers suggests that the dreaded Bradley/Wilder effect, in which more people say they'll vote for a black person than actually do, didn't play a role.
- John Edwards can't be too happy today. He tried to become the alternative to Obama by attacking Clinton but that doesn't seem to have gotten him too far. Also, Clinton's victory speech kinda impinges on his anti-corporate populist turf (not that there's anything wrong with that). Edwards has been impressive, but I just don't see how he wins unless Obama collapses. Then again, the way this primary has been going he could certainly pull off an upset. See Ezra also.
- Also I'm glad culinary workers endorsed Obama, not because it'd help him, but because it proved this snide tool wrong. Really though, the whole premise of the argument that the union is somehow dishonest if its endorsement is affected by petty concerns like who is likely to win is deeply ludicrous. Obama had already picked up the Nevada SEIU endorsement. It remains to be seen how useful these endorsements turn out to be since this caucus is a first for Nevada.
- In other Obama news, a lot of people have been treating the Obama "yes we can" slogan as some clever new idea. It actually dates back to his 2004 senate race.
- Wondering how he can? Here's his leaked strategy.
- On the Republican side all eyes are on Michigan where the conventional wisdom is that the race is between Romney, son of a former governor, and the energized McCain who won the state in 2000. But we shouldn't count out Huckabee who was actually doing pretty well there last time someone polled it (but that was approximately five billion years ago at the rate this election is changing).
- Fred Thompson can't be around for much longer after barely beating Duncan Hunter in New Hampshire.
- McCain's new strategy seems to be to play the Rocky theme song a lot. I guess we'll know whether this is Rocky I or Rocky II after a couple more primaries. Between this, his 100 years of occupation in Iraq comment, and sub-Fred-Thompson level of his New Hampshire victory speech I wonder how much farther he'll get.
- Finally, my favorite moment last night was Rudy Giuliani's claim that "maybe we've lulled our opponents into a false sense of confidence." True, except for the "false" part.
--Sam Boyd