My Fearless Primary Prediction

I’m going to go out on a limb here and predict with total confidence that today the people of New Hampshire are going to go into voting booths all over the state and vote for the candidate of their choice. The television pundits will begin to hint broadly at the winners at about 3pm eastern time based upon exit poll information they have promised not to share with the public until the polls close. Unable to help themselves, they will wink and nod and “let slip” all kinds of information to those who are watching closely.

Then, about 30 seconds after the designated closing time they will reveal the winner.

That’s my prediction.

Oh, you want winners and losers?

Well, my crystal ball is as foggy as always, but it looks as if the New England homeboys Kerry and Dean are going to come in 1st and 2nd, which is only noteworthy because both of them have already performed a Lazarus-like resurrection. Third or fourth are probably Clark/Edwards — which means that New Hampshire could have been predicted last fall with almost total accuracy.

The real story of New Hampshire is that Howard Dean has the humility, nimbleness and flexibility to learn from defeat and live to fight another day. He’s shown me more in his handling of the post Iowa bitch lap than he did in all the months of Deaniac fever. If he comes back strong tonight the slate is clean and he’s back in business.

One thing seems sure. The pundits’ pronouncements of inevitability or death should probably be seen as signs that the opposite is true. So far, they have written off Kerry, Dean and Edwards at least once and if Clark doesn’t take 3rd today he’s next. And so far, they have been wrong each time. The February 3rd race will probably show who has legs and who doesn’t, but tonight the pundits are going to make a bunch of premature pronouncements about all of the candidates that I guarantee are wrong. Their track record in this race so far is worse than I’ve ever seen it.

As I said before, I’m not afraid of a long primary fight. It’s the best show on TV. Bush is sinking in the polls (even the virtually guaranteed SOTU bounce didn’t happen) because he’s being shown up by all of our candidates as a gibberish babbling moron every time you see him speak. People had forgotten what president’s are supposed to sound like. We’re reminding them every day.

I say let’s keep it going for as long as possible. We can take the pressure and so can our candidates. You can’t buy this kind of exposure.