Well, the pundits and media are busy spinning the results from New Hampshire as comebacks for both Hillary Clinton and John McCain.
I think they've got it all wrong.
Let's start with the Democrats. Hillary Clinton didn't actually win the state outright, despite winning the popular vote (which is what the media is focusing on). She tied. The point of these primaries isn't to win the popular vote, but to win enough delegates to win the party's nomination. Take a good look at those results.
Both Obama and Hillary each won nine delegates in New Hampshire. The best way to describe this process is that the primaries are a series of Electoral College decisions, with the popular vote informing the delegates, but each state has its own rules on how the delegates are apportioned.
At this point, she's got more than double Barack Obama's pledged delegates either from the states already contested or those superdelegates who have already announced preferences.
This cuts against all the nonsense about how Hillary was on the ropes or was going to drop out of the race that was spewed immediately after Iowa where Obama won in a tight race.
It means that Obama did what he needs to do, which is keep picking up delegates and staying close to Hillary. However, it's the perception that Hillary was down and out that was broken - although it was a perception generated by a media that simply has been getting it wrong all along with respect to the primaries.
Now, let's get to the GOP race. For the media, John McCain's win is supposedly about a comeback. Nonsense. Utter bunk. New Hampshire has gone for McCain before, and it's done nothing to help McCain win the nominiation, let alone win the Presidency. McCain has a significant constituency in New Hampshire, but it doesn't translate to the rest of the country.
He still trails Mitt Romney and Huckabee badly in total delegates. Romney still has a lead over Huckabee despite not having won a state - he's winning delegates finishing second in each of the races thus far. The media also has been treating Romney in the same fashion as Hillary - as being on the ropes and reconsidering his position in the race, despite the fact that he's leading in total delegates pledged or won.
Now, some will say that the media influenced the races because they were getting polling data suggesting that Obama would win handily and McCain was in a tight race, but I think that's just 20-20 hindsight. The polls were wrong. I'm not sure why that was the case, but it's not like the polls haven't been wrong (and badly wrong at that) in the past. If your methodologies or selection samples aren't accurate, you're not going to get a representative sample that reflects the voters.
Then, there's the last minute vote switches based on breaking events. Did Hillary's emotional moment have an effect. Perhaps, but there's no real way to break that out.
This race will truly start to shake out after Super Tuesday, when a block of 20 states will get to vote and apportion their delegates. It's only after that point will the race clarify and see who reallyhas an advantage in delegates, strategy, and whether there is any momentum from these early races.
That said, there were some losers last night - John Edwards, who simply can't generate any traction, Fred Thompson, who barely registered with Republicans, and Rudy Giuliani who couldn't overcome the perception that he wasn't really going after New Hampshire voters despite having been to the state more than 40 times and spending more than $2 million on the state.
UPDATE:
Michelle Malkin is on the same page and ripping the spin and punditry that is focusing far too much on the popular vote and not spending nearly enough time on the delegate counts.
UPDATE:
This shouldn't come as a surprise. Bill Richardson has dropped out of the race. Expect him to try and angle for a VP slot for Hillary or Obama.
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