1.  Obama is going to crowd the heck out of 50% in tonight's NH primary.  My guess is 46%, but I give the chance of him knocking through the 50% mark a one-out-of-three shot.  Far from trying to dissuade the national electorate from an error in Iowa's collective judgment, NH is going to amplify last week's Iowa results with a less than typically stoic (yet still laconic), "Hell, yes."  Crucial to Obama's ultimate chances to win the White House will be how NH's Independent plurality breaks for him.  With a week's worth of polls indicating that McCain will carry the state on the GOP side and with a national electorate tired of being powerless in US politics (therefore also inimical to HRC's 'Inevitability Campaign'), there shouldn't be a surge of Independents voting in the Republican primary to determine the winner of a 'close race' between McCain and Romney.  I'm hoping that 58% of Independents vote in the Dem primary today; north of 63% would scare the bejesus out of GOP hopefuls.  (My money's on the latter.)  Toward this end, McCainosaurus helped the Dem cause with his tone-deaf pronouncement that the US might be in Iraq 'for 50 or 100 years.'  Yesterday's Warrior almost cheerfully embracing today's morass into the far and bleak future... Romney might have used that in an ad; as Dems we surely should use it.  How confident the GOP is in the chances of Bush's stabilization of Iraq to last until November!
   
2. NH will put at least a temporary end to HRC's chances tonight.  SC will ratify those results soon and solidly.  Florida will become a make-or-break state for two New Yorkers.  Both Giuliani and Clinton will have to win the biggest delegate states to stay in contention.  Since they should each win in NY, that leaves IL (but not for HRC, as Obama will easily carry his home state), TX, NJ, PA, OH, CA, and FL.  My guess is that the McCain-Huckabee axis is going to make FL too close to give Giuliani any momentum heading into Super Tuesday, even if "9/11 24/7" politics squeaks out a win in FL.  If Romney stays in until FL, Huckabee might even carry the state, effectively ending Rudy's chances.  When both drop out, we can hope that even the GOP is getting tired of the politics of mean.
   
3. What will be unfortunate for Obama is if HRC and JE drop out too soon.  The nice thing for Obama is that there are two of them.  Everyone fears Obama faltering with a Deanesque yelp or something else.  Both HRC and JE will stay close enough to jump back in if that happens; surely neither would leave only one viable alternative to a fallen Obama.  
   
4.  Obama's support is not just with the young, nor does the excitement he engenders in the electorate reside only in young voters.  He wins most Dem constituencies and many disaffected demographics, who are, by definition, not voters either Party can usually claim.  With presidential elections being decided by a handful of percentage points and Independents clearly favoring him, Obama may more easily win us the White House than HRC ever could.  There is no question that he will have to be more concrete in laying out (and defending) programs and policies he'd advocate as President.  That'll be the easy part.  The tough part will come when the experience critique is leveled by McCain and the GOP machine.  Their headache will come as Obama appeals to slices of their fundamentalist base even if McCain taps Huckabee for VP.  If Bush's Pax Iraq unravels, it may make McCain's experience argument backfire mortally.  Of course, if the majority of the electorate thinks change is accomplished by not repeating the past, McCain may be the weakest GOP nominee (even in the face of his past ability to attract Independent voters).
   
5.  Turn-outs (the young, African-Americans, new voters (having had been disaffected)) and enthusiastic Independent primary majorities in key electoral states are going to frighten the Right to death, if my crystal ball has any game.  It is said that "at their worst the Left is snide, but the Right is violent."  America must ensure that hope survives; if WE do not then surely our significance to world history is over.

After Iowa, What's Next?  (Besides NH.)

1.  The money will tilt heavily to Obama and McCain.  To Obama, because Independent voters have now proven something we always feared with an 'inevitable' HRC nomination--that they will not support HRC in the general election enough for her to become President even though the right Dem should be able to bank them 7-to-3 in November--and because Obama is the kind of likable, big-vision, and low-threat change-agent the GOP really can't beat now.  (It would be very surprising if Obama doesn't tie HRC in national polls and best her in NH polls by tomorrow.) To McCain because while economic populism on the Left (Edwards) is expected by Big Money, Big Money despises and squashes it when it comes from the Right.  Listening to McCain and Huckabee, one might guess that they've already talked about running together, which makes one of the biggest losers last night CT Senator Joe Lieberman.  Before the Huckabee phenom, I'd have bet a case of Bud that McCain was going to tap Joe Lieberman as his VP.  Not anymore, since no GOP presidential candidate can win without a full-court press by the fundamentalist Right, and this group now has a dog in the hunt.  Assuming that Romney and Giuliani and Thompson don't surprise us and pull a McCain rebirth, unless Huckabee truly proves he has legs, my guess is that McCain will tap him for VP.  (CT really has to pass some kind of recall mechanism and pass it quickly to remove the scourge of Lieberman from US politics.)

2.  Obama needs Edwards to stay in the race through Super Tuesday.  Edwards' strident populism, coupled with HRC's Iowa-proven mortality, will flood Obama's coffers with Dem and Independent money, and will also prompt pragmatic business donors to donate in buckets.  Obama also needs Huckabee to lead McCain to get the lion's share of business donors.  A populist leading on the GOP side will make businessmen and women write this cycle's checks to national candidates with their left hands.  

3. Down-ticket concerns over HRC being at the top are now lessened, but will surface over Obama's being at the top of the Dem ticket.  My guess is that the Clintonistas will foster this quickly, but that HRC will not become stridently critical of Obama herself.  That would only confirm the negative image many Republicans, Independents, and Dems have of her as a national candidate.  This makes the race in SC almost as important as the primary in NH.  I expect Edwards to jump on this (down-ticket worries with Obama at the top of the ticket) as an eleventh-hour strategem.  If Edwards doesn't win SC he will be out.  I'll be watching for him to effectively cede NH and concentrate on SC.  It would be better for Obama if Edwards stayed in until Super Tuesday, though.

4.  The upper-midwest swing states (WI, MN, and OH) and turning-blue Mountain states (CO, NM, MT) will be toughest for Obama to win over and, yet, some must be won (WI, MN, and NM at the very least) for a Dem to win the White House.  HRC will play stronger in these states, though not if she waits too long and Obama cinches the nomination beforehand.  Toward this end, persuading Richardson to throw his support to Clinton and making a big thing about how HRC plays better in the Mountain states than Obama does (correction, did before IA last night) might be a next step for HRC.  (Even half-baked, I doubt this cake warrants frosting.)

5.  Everyone is wondering what rabbit HRC will pull out of the hat, given her drubbing last night in America's center and given how damaging starting a bitter-if-tonally-critical harangue toward Obama would be for her in most of the primaries to come, not to mention the GE.  Never, never count the political genius of Bill Clinton out.  Their strategists, image communicators, organizers, and managers have been supplanted by a younger, nimbler, and harder-working generation of pols.  That is the way the world works:  the new supplants the old.  But, Bill Clinton will come up with something; he always does.  I doubt HRC will be able to sell it or otherwise execute what Bill comes up with though.  She certainly didn't in the center of America last night.

6.  Finally, Obama delivered a stunning speech last night.  With overtones of MLK and JFK, he outclassed Dem and GOP rivals by far.  (Huckabee's, while devotational, rang incoherent in reality-based ears.  And McCain's was tactical, which is seldom "presidential.")  He is clearly the guy to beat for Dems and Reps alike now.  If NH and SC follow IA's suit and unless the unexpected or unthinkable happens, none of them will lay a glove on him.

(I am working for none of the candidates, though I have been leaning toward Obama since his speech at our last Convention.)