So what’s next?  Huckabee won the Hawkeye Caucii, Romney took Wyoming, and McCain made his money in New Hampshire.  Romney is leading the pack with 30 delegates, Huckabee with 21, McCain 10, Thompson 6, Ron Paul 2, and Giuliani and Hunter each have 1.  Conventional wisdom says that Romney should win the next primary, Michigan, because he is from there and his dad was the governor back in the 60s.  However, with McCain’s resurgence he could ride in on a white horse and sweep victory off its feet.  He did win the state in 2000.

South Carolina is a must win for Fred Thompson otherwise he is finished in my opinion.  It’s too bad.  The man really does have all the Reaganesque qualities about him, except he’s lacking Reagan’s personality which had the gravitas to pull everyone in.  He is starting an 11 day bus tour throughout the state as what I would suspect is a last ditch effort.  Should he prevail we will be in a really interesting situation coming up, because Florida and Super Tuesday follows.

Huckabee, Romney, McCain, and Thompson all still in the race by February 5th may very well set up a perfect storm for Rudy Giuliani.  He has everything banked on making big wins in Florida and on the states on Super Tuesday when many of the larger liberal states that would go for Giuliani are voting.  Giuliani will most certainly win New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Delaware by large margins, and most likely California as well.  I also think he will have a good showing in Florida the week before.  Since he won’t be facing just one opponent by that point the non-Rudy vote gets diluted and that could set him up very well.  Granted, nobody has ever made it to the White House using this strategy but he is looking to be the first.

Regardless, I don’t think this race will be decided even on February 5th.  We could easily see a scenario where these five candidates all have enough delegates accumulated to keep chuggin along down the line.

The Concord Monitor has the full detailed list of votes received last night in the New Hampshire Primary. There were actually 21 candidates on the Republican ballot to choose from. Apparently, it’s very easy to get on the ballot in New Hampshire and they also have same day voter registration. Vermin Supreme (pictured below), a veteran of the New Hampshire presidential primaries, managed to get 41 people to vote for him.