NH Primary Predictions

[koolking1]

I think today

will end the aspirations of both Clinton and Guiliani, the two candidates the maimedstream media has been trying to

shove down our throats, sure hope so.

My candidate, Ron Paul, will move up today in the scheme of things,

won't be first cause McCain is too well loved here and Romney's from next door, so I'll say he gets 3rd, sure

hope so, would be a very good thing.

Fox News is dead.

[belgareth]

Sounds like a pretty good

prediction, makes sense. Be glad to be rid of the spector of another Clinton presidency and have high hopes for Ron

Paul.

[idesign]

Agree about the media pushing

candidates on us. These days you really need to read a lot of sources to get the "most truest" story on just about

anything.

As far as the NH primary, and Iowa, and SC... the primaries can be important to either kick-off or

bury a candidate, but in the long haul they don't really matter much. Especially true if the candidate has a lot

of money and a good organization, which Clinton and Giuliani both have.

My prediction is that Obama (as scary as

Clinton) and Romney will pull out the NH win. McCain might, but Romney is coming on too strong. Look for Giuliani

to come on strong later, if his strategy works.

Ron Paul is an anomaly. I like him a lot, but would not vote for

him. He has virtually no chance at winning anything, but I'm very glad he's running and getting his ideas

out.

Not sure what you mean about "Fox News is dead". Quite the opposite if you look at ratings. No matter what

your political leanings, its true that Fox has shaken up the mainstream stranglehold on news reporting. Wonder why

the the big 3 news network divisions are all now losing ratings and all are losing money? You gotta be pretty

desperate to put Katie Couric on a news desk. Yuck.

[Whitehall]

They seem to be deliberately

ignoring (at best) my guy, Fred Thompson.

He knew that would happen going in so has been doing

workarounds.

The mainstream media is killing itself off, and not a minute too soon.

BTW, I'm slated

to be a delegate to the GOP convention if he wins my district.

[idesign]

They

seem to be deliberately ignoring (at best) my guy, Fred Thompson.

He knew that would happen going in so has been

doing workarounds.

The mainstream media is killing itself off, and not a minute too soon.

BTW, I'm slated to

be a delegate to the GOP convention if he wins my district.

Thompson is really the only true conservative

running on the GOP side. Its a reflection on our "pablum politics" that his meaty, nuts and bolts, serious approach

is not gaining ground.

In the NH debate he was the only one to offer real plans for a given issue (Social

Security). All the others were lost, and reverted to speako.

I look forward to seeing how he does in SC, and on

Super Tuesday.

Mainstream media... Imagine someone laughing so hard (disgustedly) that they have to change the

channel.

[idesign]

My

prediction is that Obama (as scary as Clinton) and Romney will pull out the NH win. McCain might, but Romney is

coming on too strong.

How smart can I expect to be? Not very, but the race is not over.

Can't wait to make more predictions.

[belgareth]

I was a little shocked too. Oh

well, the show isn't over until the fat lady sings...

[koolking1]

when my

girlfriend went to vote at 7AM she called me afterward to let me know that all the candidates except Guiliani and

Paul had supporters with signs at the polling place here. I was a bit dismayed about that but thought, well - all

the folks are still in Concord and will be here soon. I went to vote around 10AM and found that there were still no

Paul folks, nor Guiliani for that matter, at the poll. I had not planned this but went home and got my Ron Paul

sign and went back to the polling place and stayed there, except for a lunch break and to walk my dog, until the

polls closed at 8PM (most polls in NH closed by 7 but we were open till 8). I have to give a lot, and I mean a lot,

of credit to the Hillary Clinton campaign effort. She had folks all over my small town of 16,000 and they were out

all day and getting people to the polls. Obama had a similar effort going. Unfortunately, the Ron Paul campaign

consists of 1000s of highly dedicated supporters here with zero support from the campaign Hqs. By that I mean they

didn't organize, plan, or execute professionally. It was run "willy-nilly". And, with all the contributions

donated, the ad money was not effectively used. Very amateurish I thought. There was only the barest of training

provided to these dedicated folks. The thought was, "well, this is grassroots and let them run with it". Obama is

grassroots as well but his staff understands how to effectively run a campaign and they ran it pretty well here.



I had no illusions about Ron Paul winning here, I just wanted him to at least beat out Guiliani and latently

Huckabee. That
didn't happen and it's a damn shame.

We had a record voter turnout here yesterday

which shows the people are fed up with the status quo. Women especially were out in force. I spoke with several

Edwards and Clinton supporters as I was in their midst. Surprisingly, or not I suppose, their impression of Ron

Paul was very favorable, the only Republican they liked on any level. Edwards supporters sympathised with me on the

"main stream media" is shutting both candidates out theme. As an aside, one small town here, Sutton, Population 20,

has 3 people who will confirm they voted for Ron Paul but in the morning the computer count for Sutton shows zero

votes. I don't think there was any hanky-panky here in Exeter, I noted 8 people who spoke to me on the way in

saying they were voting for Paul (boy, was that discouraging for me) but in the end 167 folks here voted for him.



Lesson I learned is that many many women are getting out to the polls to vote for Clinton. It's

discouraging to me that they are doing so not because of a candidate's positions but soley due to Clinton being a

woman. But, that's being simplistic a bit. The big issue for them is health care and so we go on living in the

Nanny state. Niether McCain, Romney, Guiliani, Huckabee or Thompson can beat Clinton.

[belgareth]

While I am not really opposed

to healthcare made affordable to all, government managed healthcare is bound to be a disaster no matter how you look

at it. Our government's record of incompetence makes that a certainty. I don't have the answer any more than any

of the candidates do. But adding another layer of burden on already stressed taxpayers to pay for another government

boondoggle is possibly the worst course available.

You are right in your concerns about the nanny state, in my

opinion. But I don't really see an end in sight for that either. As the gap grows between the 'haves' and the

'have nots', the desire for government intervention grows. Politicians (Normally 'Haves' themselves) encourage

the perception of an unfair gap as a wedge to encourage the 'have not' voters to give them more power to control

more of our lives in the false belief that it will make their lives better. It has never worked that way, you could

even argue that it increases the gap, but as a whole we are rather weak on history.

Two of my sisters and I had

a talk recently about Clinton, they are both supporters. Neither really understood her platform and neither was

really interested. Both are reasonably intelligent and well informed but they are only interested in the facts that

she is a woman and is for universal healthcare. Neither seemed to have the first clue where funding would come from

even though they both are nurses and will be in the group hardest hit by the tax increases needed to pay for

universal healthcare. It was dismaying, especially when I believe that they are representative of far too many

people. I am still hoping for a miracle and that somehow neither Obama or Clinton are elected. Probably a false hope

though.

So far, the primaries have only been in a couple normally fairly liberal states. Let's see what happens

in the upcoming ones.