I sincerely doubt that he places higher than third. Momentum is too important - Howard Dean was leading in NH four years ago until he lost big in Iowa.

Woo Hoo! I'm not for either candidate, but my predictions turned out pretty damn good!

I expected the Dems to be clustered between 30-36%, which was off 1% each way, and got the order right.

And I called Huckabee over Romney, with a combined % of about 60 (though I expected Romney to be closer). McCain did a little worse than I expected, Thompson and Paul a little better, but all things considered, I think I did a pretty good job with my prognostications.

Eerie - those were my predictions across the board. I thought McCain would top Thompson, but otherwise I got the order correct.

Obama and Huck won. I'm not surprised

McCain spent little time or money in Iowa, essentially ceded the state to his rivals, AND came out agains ethanol subsidies (which is like coming out against gambling in Nevada).

Currently no one expects Huckabee to be able to carry this win through to the nomination (though no one expected the Iowa win either), as he had an advantage in demographics (over 50% of the Iowa caucus voters are evangelicals), and is seriously lacking in funds and organization. That's going to make it very difficult for Huck to compete in this severely compressed primary season (or at least that is the conventional wisdom).

The way things had been going lately, McCain was surging in New Hampshire and national polls (just today? one poll finally had him ahead of Giuliani nationally). With Rudy a non-factor until Florida, Mitt was McCain's biggest obstacle. He is from NH's neighboring state and is expected to have a "home field" advantage, and of course he is the best funded of the remaining candidates. Mitt's loss in Iowa now makes a McCain win in NH more likley (though Obama's win makes it less so, as he could siphon off the independent NH voters that gave McCain the win in 2000). A loss in Iowa and New Hampshire completely obliterates Romney's strategy to win, and seriously undermines his credibility, given the money he has spent. With Rudy sinking, Mitt flailing, and Thompson and Hunter likley to drop out, there will be plenty of voters up for grabs, and McCain is by far the most popular "second choice" candidate. That opens the door for McCain to use the NH victory to create a "concensus" coalition of GOP voters to take the nomination. 

Wait - Thompson's back above McCain??? OK, just by a few votes. Close enough for a tie. I figured McCain between 12-18%, Thompson between 8-12, and Paul between 5-10% (though today I was expecting to see Paul climb over Thompson based on erroneous reports that Thompson was planning on dropping out). 

Except for one poll (which had Kerry winning by 1% or so), Dean was expected to win Iowa, and he came in third by almost 20 points. He then followed it up with the infamous "I Have a Scream" speech which (unfairly I think) made a mockery of him. In the case of McCain, just a month ago he was near the cellar in Iowa, hovering around 6-7%. He hadn't been as high as 13% since July. Given that he rose back to that level in so little time while spending next to none of his resources there, it is hard not to credit him with a positive result.

Not really accurate - the late polling did a fairly good job of predicting a Kerry win in Iowa. http://www.pollster.com/blogs/how_accurate_were_the_iowa_pol.php

And voters don't usually tend to care how much resources a candidate spent - dollars-to-votes ratios don't mean a whole lot to most people. The overriding reality is that McCain came in fourth, 20 pts behind the winner. That's negative momentum, and I believe the next round of NH polling will reflect that.

(Historically, ignoring Iowa is usually not a good sign. In the last 30 or so years, the Democratic winner of a contested caucus has won the nomination five of seven times, and the Republicans three of five times.)

http://www.buffalobeast.com/122/50mostloathsome2007.html

47. Mike Huckabee

Charges: What's worse, a calculating politician pretending to be a devout Christian, or a genuine heartland preacher who didn't come from no monkey? Huckabee is both -- a Southern Baptist who rejects Darwin, wants to give everyone a gun and thinks people with AIDS should be quarantined, and a seedy, corrupt politician who's never seen a payoff so low he won't stoop to pick it up. Democrats see Huckabee as easily defeated in a general election, but they shouldn't be so sure -- Smooth talking preachers tend to do well in this country. Huckabee is well-spoken, kind-faced, and the opposite of wordly -- he's Obama for hicks.

Exhibit A: "I got into politics because I knew government didn't have the real answers, that the real answers lie in accepting Jesus Christ into our lives... I hope we answer the alarm clock and take this nation back for Christ."

Sentence: Just as he's about to win the GOP nomination, a freak gust of wind catches Huckabee's excess skin and carries him out over the Atlantic, where he drifts for hours before God appears to him, tells him He's a Unitarian, and sends him to hell.