New Hampshire, the state that professes 'Live Free or Die'...I choose live free, please. Time to make some predictions for tomorrow's exciting primary event:
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~~~ Democratic Party ~~~
- Barack Obama
- Hillary Clinton
- John Edwards
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This lineup seems to be the conventional wisdom for the Democratic side. Barack Obama has a commanding lead in just about every poll and, if his performance in Iowa with young voters and Independents carries over to New Hampshire, I predict about a 9-15 point lead over the second place finisher. Various factors regarding the Clinton campaign (ramping up the negative campaigning, the Saturday night debate, today's crying incident) make me very badly want to predict that John Edwards will actually pull ahead of Clinton, like in Iowa, and finish in a close second over her; however, I just can't pull the trigger on that one, so I'll just state that I think Edwards will finish a lot closer to Clinton than others are predicting. And, finally, I predict Bill Richardson will realize that he should have exited stage left along with the classy Joe Biden and Chris Dodd back in Iowa.
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~~~ Republican Party ~~~
- John McCain
- Mitt Romney
- Mike Huckabee
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This also seems to be what most political pundits are assuming will come out of New Hampshire tomorrow on the Republican side, however I feel there's more room here than on the Democratic side for things to be shaken up a bit. With the fear that John McCain's strength with Independent voters will be hindered by the Obama wave, and a nagging suspicion that Mitt Romney should still not be underestimated, I wouldn't be shocked if the McCain vs. Romney battle for 1st and 2nd is pretty tight, and/or Huckabee's third place finish is not too far behind the second place finisher. I'm giving McCain the edge, mostly because of the Republican debate performances this weekend and the loudly conveyed message that not even his fellow running mates like Romney (plus, McCain has always thrived on these kinds of underdog-esque narratives). As for the rest of the bunch, we are left with Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, and Ron Paul battling it out for fourth place. I'll assume voters have finally gotten the memo that not even Fred Thompson would vote for Fred Thompson, and predict that Giuliani and Paul have a very tight race, with Paul ending up with a slim and surprising fourth place finish (come on, those extremely vocal supporters of his have to be good for something!)
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