At 9:00PM with 25% in Fox News has called the race for Mike Huckabee. It seems fairly certain Romney will place second, however there is a battle for third place among Thompson with 14%, John McCain with 12%, and Ron Paul with 11%.

The Democrats are in a three way tie at the moment.

At 8:49PM with 15% in:

• Huckabee - 36%
• Romney - 23%
• Thompson - 14%
• McCain - 12%

At 8:30PM Fox News just reported the following early returns from Iowa:

• Mike Huckabee - 33%
• Mitt Romney - 23%
• Fred Thompson - 14.5%

On the Democratic side Obama is leading Hillary 34 to 27.

For the past couple of years the Democrats have been out-raising the Republicans quite handily, so seeing this was a pleasant surprise.  Are Republicans donors finally starting to put their heads back in the game?  With a lot of vulnerable Senate races this year, this extra money could be crucial.

When it comes to fund-raising, Democrats have outpaced Republicans almost across the board. The lone exception is the Republican National Committee, which reported yesterday that it had raised $83 million for the year, easily topping the Democratic National Committee, which had raised $50.5 million in the first 11 months of 2007.

Republicans say that this cash pile — the Republican committee has $17.2 million on hand, compared to the $2.8 million the Democratic committee reported — should help the Republican presidential nominee in the fall.

“Our significant fund-raising advantage over the D.N.C.,” said Alex Conant, a spokesman for the Republican committee, “will put the Republican nominee in a strong position in the general election, with the resources to communicate our message and mobilize voters.”

The New York Times

Daily Pundit points out the ‘treachery’ of the GOP in the Senate in this recent unsurprising move.

In a quiet act of defiance, the Senate approved a $555 billion omnibus spending bill that removed legal requirements mandating the federal government fund 854 miles of a double layer border fence spanning America’s southwestern border.
The funding requirement was codified into law when Congress passed, and President George W. Bush signed, the Secure Fence Act (SFA) in 2006.
When the spending bill, which combines appropriations for a number of federal agencies, reached the Senate, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) attached S.Amdt. 2466 to the measure in order to silently gut the SFA’s spending requirement.

GOP Establishment to constituents, and voters in general: screw you, we’re not building your fence or enforcing the immigration laws like we pledged we’d do. We’re still going to attempt a run-around to bypass the American people and pass a “comprehensive” immigration bill, full of amnesty and other goodies for people who aren’t in the country legally. We indeed deserve the label “The Stupid Party,” because we repeatedly bash our heads into the wall, whining like children when our constituents and the American people demand results against illegal immigration.

I hope everyone possible sees this today and over the primary season. This is a pretty good slap-in-the-face reminder of who to avoid nominating (Giuliani is all about sanctuary cities, Huckabee wanted to give scholarships to illegals and didn’t participate in rooting out illegals in his state, Romney favored the McCain-Kennedy-Bush Amnesty before opposing it once voters started paying attention, and McCain is, of course, McCain).

In all likelihood, GOP primary voters/caucus goers will ignore this and pick someone who will continue the legacy of “compassionate conservativism.” Because hey, a nation with expanding government but apparently no immigration law is great!

Fred Thompson all the way. Ignore the media who has been against his campaign from the start, ignore the pundits who are apparently all offended that Thompson chose to jump in the race in September (John Kerry jumped in during October, but I digress), and ignore anybody who buys into the “he’s lazy!” bullcrap. For once we have a candidate who is truly interested in holding the office not for the prestige and power, but because he has the right ideas about leading the country and has the desire to serve his country in this capacity. He’s chosen to campaign in his own way, dissing moderators with ridiculous requests, then yesterday giving an answer on global warming that is refreshingly un-AlGoreistic (but Romney, McCain, Huckabee, and Giuliani have all bought into the Inconvenient Scam), and putting out real proposals that make conservatives swoon, all the while rejecting soundbite-driven campaigning.