Nevada is now done, as is South Carolina for the GOP. Romney and McCain were the respective winners in those races: Romney still has the overall delegate lead, but McCain has stolen the momentum from Huckabee. I expect that by Super Tuesday, this will essentially become a race between Romney and McCain, unless Huckabee can somehow pull off a miracle.
Duncan Hunter has withdrawn from the GOP race. I'm guessing Thompson will cut his losses and withdraw within 2 weeks: he was basically making his stand in South Carolina, and it remains to be seen whether he considers a distant 3rd-place finish - and no delegates - strong enough to continue. Part of me thinks he will, part of me thinks he'll try to hold out until Super Tuesday. That said, his funds are low and prospects are poor, so I'm not sure he can afford to campaign for Super Tuesday the way he'd need to.
On the Democrat side, Clinton and Obama have settled into a nice head-to-head match. The two are trading blows, but Clinton's worst-case scenario has not materialized: she's still ahead of Obama nationally, and has managed to mitigate his post-Iowa bounce. Her longer-term prospects look pretty good at the moment. I'm guessing the next candidate out will be Edwards. Kucinich is running a "fringe" candidacy, kind of like Ron Paul's but without the money and support, and he'll go as long as he can. Edwards, meanwhile, has practically no chance of winning, but does have enough clout that his support could put one of the other two over the top. I'm guessing that if it hasn't started already, some back-room dealing is on the horizon in the very near future. I also think the Democrat picture will clear up well before the GOP picture.
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The Clinton-factor is becoming interesting. That's "Clinton" as in "President Clinton". He is really annoying Obama, and both pundits and Democratic Party leaders are questioning the wisdom and appropriateness of a former president playing the 'attack dog' role in a party primary campaign. On the other hand, his personal approval rating among Democrats is about 83%, they say.
About Obama, I am reminded of the situation in 1968, where -- according to one commentator -- Eugene McCarthy and Bobbie Kennedy were both attracting the young. McCarthy was drawing the A-students and Kennedy the B-students. And Kennedy was beating McCarthy. Now they say that the brightest young people are pulling for Obama. The problem is that he's not running for President of the US Debate Club.
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