Yes, I watched the New Hampshire primary returns eagerly last night, wondering what would happen. It’s fascinating. I can’t remember a time when more people were “engaged” in the process. It’s also mildly depressing for me as I have this creeping feeling that Republicans are going to get beaten badly this November. I’m not trying to depress anyone else, just providing an excuse for why I’m not writing more about the race at this point.

One thing is for sure, Fred Thompson’s campaign is now on life support and has almost flat-lined. He had less votes last night than Dennis Kucinich! He now says South Carolina is his last stand. Congrats to John McCain on his victory last night. I’m not enthusiastic about him personally. He’s way too liberal for my taste. But as I’ve said, I can vote for him if it comes to that.

As I predicted immediately following Iowa (and all of the Obama hyperventilation), you can’t count the Clintons out just yet. New Hampshire shows why.

The problem I now see is that no Republican candidate will juice our base. Once again, Democrats turned out in much larger numbers than Republicans. This is the real story to follow. There’s usually only a quick mention about it in the MSM (mainstream media). Last night in NH, there were 279,276 votes cast in the Democrat primary, and 228,531. In Iowa, the discrepancy was larger, although it’s hard to get numbers on the Democrat side in Iowa as they convert their tallies into delegates.

Below is where the delegate counts stand. On the Republican side, you need 1,191 delegates to seal the nomination. On the Democrat side you need 2,025 to seal the nomination. Both parties give out a certain number of delegates who can pledge to whomever they want without being tied to a primary or caucus result. Democrats call them “super delegates” and Republicans call them “unpledged delegates.” Because of that, the delegate race right now looks a little bit different than what you might expect. The liberal CNN website has the best coverage of this (it pains me to say). I’ll provide links to it below. The delegate numbers will quickly start to change as more of the primaries take place, as most delegates come from the primaries/caucuses.

Current Delegate Counts - Republican

• Romney - 30
• Huckabee - 21
• McCain - 10
• Thompson - 6
• Paul - 2
• Giuliani - 1
• Hunter - 1

Current Delegate Counts - Democrat

• Clinton - 183
• Obama - 78
• Edwards - 52
• Richardson - 19
• Kucinich - 1

CNN Republican Delegate Scorecard
CNN Democrat Delegate Scorecard

The primaries really start to heat up now. I believe it will be over after February 5th–”Super Tuesday.” Here’s the Presidential Nominating Calendar from the National Association of Secretaries of State:

JANUARY 2008

• January 3: Iowa
• January 5: Wyoming (R)
• January 8: New Hampshire
• January 15: Michigan
• January 19: Nevada, South Carolina (R)
• January 26: South Carolina (D)
• January 29: Florida

FEBRUARY 2008

• February 1: Maine (R)
• February 5: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho (D), Illinois, Kansas (D), Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico (D), New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah
• February 9: Louisiana, Kansas (R)
• February 10: Maine (D)
• February 12: District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia
• February 19: Hawaii (D)1, Washington, Wisconsin

MARCH 2008

• March 4: Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont
• March 8: Wyoming (D)
• March 11: Mississippi

APRIL 2008

• April 22: Pennsylvania

MAY 2008

• May 6: Indiana, North Carolina
• May 13: Nebraska, West Virginia
• May 20: Kentucky, Oregon
• May 27: Idaho (R)

JUNE 2008

• June 3: Montana, New Mexico (R), South Dakota

AUGUST 2008

• August 25-28: Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado

SEPTEMBER 2008

• September 1-4: Republican National Convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota

Technorati Tags: presidential primary, 2008 election, primary schedule, presidential nominating calendar