One thing's for sure, this is great if you're a political junkie, but the campaigns must be pulling the hair out of their heads!

Those guys are jumping for joy!  There's nothing like erasing a giant lead and standing withing striking distance on the eve of an election.  Ask anyone who cheered for Webb!

Compared to a survey of South Carolina Democratic voters taken in mid November Hillary Clinton is down from 47% to 44% while Barack Obama is up from 33% to 40%. That puts the two Senators inside the margin of error(+/-4.6). Senator John Edwards however has remained much the same, rising just one percent 10% to 11%.

Clinton had led by 14, now leads by 4, within the survey's margin of sampling error. Obama ran stronger in each of the 3 days of the interviewing period, and led Clinton, nominally, in those interviews completed after Winfrey's Sunday 12/09/07 football stadium rally with Obama.

"The Nation" has Senator Clinton coming in third in Iowa. It is just getting started this week here in NH - in the northern parts where I live everyone seems to like Obama but NH is a conservative state and it is more important what happens with Republicans (and Ron Paul is booming). Next door in liberal Vermont Hillary raised only $32,000 in third quarter - Obama ten times more - $350,000. Edwards way likely to throw in with Obama (Mudcat being not that fonda New Yorkers). Jim Webb would make the perfect VP candidate with Obama. His character and experience as Sec. of the Navy make him a First Tier candidate, and he speaks to the new age, the new century and the new Democrats.

Who's going to win NH for the Dem's and for the Republicans?  Thanks.

Hi Lowell - The Oprah thing seems to be working up here. People want to see her. Most regular folk don't know who Obama is but they know who Oprah is. My kids and I met Obama way up north last week and I felt the same elan and world spirit that Jack Kennedy had. I think Obama will win both Iowa and New Hampshire which will drive him well into South Carolina. When we met him he just seemed like the man of the hour. Best case scenario Obama vs. Huckabee; worst case Obama vs. Romney. Romney is starting to creep people out up here - his demeanor seems to slip unnoticed from happy-face-button to spooky and fascistic with his enthusiasm for torture and expanding Gitmo -  NH could go back to McCain. Either case, I'm back to my original package that Bush is a gatekeeper but he will close the gate that Reagan opened. Obama will open a new gate. Jim Webb would be a perfect match up with Obama. They have the same kind of character and integrity - the fur rises on the back when habeas corpus is dropped. Right now I see Obama as the next President.  

Thanks.  Also, do you buy the arguments I've seen some people making that Obama isn't as "electable" as Clinton, or that Edwards is the most electable, or that Clinton isn't electable, or whatever?  Personally, I think any of the Democratic top-three candidates could win the White House.  How about you?

I think Obama is entirely electable, Edwards electable against all Repub contenders (cept maybe Huckabee), Clinton unelectable. What might run in Obama's favor is that I think he does represent an "over view" or "super ego" or something about race; that is, that Americans on the one hand care about race in their local culture depending on what it is, but see themselves as Americans in a bigger picture and in fact like to show that on this level they don't care that much about race in principle in fact, they like to show that they don't. Obama very much represents the new day much as Jack Kennedy did in 1960; the country is ready for the new turning. I think the worst political ad I have ever seen is running now: It is Giuliani talking about the taking of the American hostages in Iran back in '79 and how they were released on Ronald Reagan's first day in office. It is very much like Spain in Franco's day - wierdly twisted and lost in nostalgia for a martial past. This war in Iraq will be considered a historic disaster simply on the judgment of the men who brought it about - Bush, Cheney, etc., people virtually without character. And the century will go forward with the ones who opposed it and showed character from the first; Robert C. Byrd, Jim Webb, Barack Obama. This could be one of those matches made in heaven; Fred and Ginger, Lennon and McCartney, Brady and Moss and Obama and Webb.

JFK was an "unelectable" Catholic.

Jimmy Carter was an unelectable peanut farmer.

Bill Clinton was an unelectable hick governor.

George W. Bush was an unelectable product of a misspent youth, the "other son" (remember, Jeb, not George, was the one everyone talked about following in Daddy's footsteps).