Wow. Hillary pulled it out, and quite handily. But it’s hard to see how she’s the front-runner. And I can’t imagine that Edwards voters won’t mostly end up in the Obama camp. But the big story today is how wrong the media was, including our nearly infallible Cardinal, who offers his apologies here. Richelieu makes a couple of good points, among them:
It must have. I certainly thought the tears would be the end of her, but I have a Y chromosome, and apparently it played differently with those that don’t. Still, you can’t take anything away from her. On the other side, McCain’s comeback was extraordinary. It would be an understatement to say that his electoral prospects were grim just a few months ago, and there was a lot of talk about whether the campaign would even live to see the first vote. Then the turnaround in Iraq–in which he played a critical role–gave the campaign a reason to exist. He bet on America when we were underdogs, and it paid off big. It’s a remarkable and unexpected outcome, whether he can beat Huckabee or not. But it will be a Huckabee-McCain battle, right? Romney’s appeal was that he was a winner–rich, successful, handsome, effective. Winners don’t collect silver medals. I await an alternate theory from Dean tomorrow. Final note. The most important moment of the night was McCain’s victory speech (click here to watch if you missed it). Obama and Hillary each offered a state of the union type laundry list of campaign promises, along with some cheap rhetoric about change, uniting us, getting things done. McCain’s delivery wasn’t on par with Obama’s, but the substance–duty, honor, country–was all there. Old soldiers never die…at least not in New Hampshire.
