Thank you, Florida Republicans, for saving America from Rudy’s lispy brand of authoritarianism.

Rudy’s endorsement of McCain may not matter much tomorrow, prestige wise, but it will bring with it a well-established organization. I know from the emails I get every week that Giuliani volunteers have been phone banking in California for months. Presumably his operation in other big states — New York in particular — is similarly robust.

Going forward, McCain will be at a disadvantage money-wise. And there’s enough people who despise McCain in the Republican party that I think Mitt won’t even be funding the majority of his full-court challenge of McCain through February fifth.

But Rudy’s foolhardy big-state strategy will give McCain a real leg-up in the ground game with independents and non-evangelical Republicans.

Let us just pray that McCain didn’t overpay for this endorsement with the promise of a VP slot.

In freefall in Florida.

Hilariously red-necked up.

Rudy’s:
“Only one [candidate] has a plan to fix the IN-surance mess.”

Hillary’s:
“Runnin’ up debt… Refusin’ to deal with the housing crisis.”

John McCain’s campaign had been dead for five months.

Hillary Clinton’s for five days.

But the frontrunners we started this campaign with a year ago have both regained a real shot at their parties’ nominations.

Who’da thunk it?!?

McCain
The Arizona senator’s Phoenix act, though more easily foreseen going into today’s contest, is in many ways the less probable. I was among the media masses penning McCain’s political obituary after he burned through $30 million and left himself less cash than Ron Paul (pre Guy Fawkes day, no less).

Give Mac credit for perseverance — and the insight to understand that all the money in the world couldn’t solve the electability problems of RuPaul Rompson.

Despite McCain’s convincing New Hampshire victory — which importantly included a victory over Mitt Romney among Republicans as well as independents — I’m not entirely clear that McCain is now the GOP frontrunner.

Huckabee’s going to cruise to an easy victory in South Carolina. That’s a done deal. Which leaves McCain and Romney again to do battle in Michigan. Romney’s still got deeper pockets and a deep family connection to the state where his dad was a popular governor.

Romney’s also plastic enough and smart enough to end the negative campaigning that hurt him so much in the Granite State and give the voters of Michigan a neatly packaged version of whatever it is they want to buy.

But if McCain can thread the Michigan needle, I think he’ll have truly boxed out Rudy as the neocon maverick, and set up Florida and beyond as a battle royale between the Huck and the Mac. (A Romney comeback in Michigan, however, creates space for Rudy and we’re back to the clusterf&%k for the White House.)

Clinton

Hats off to Hillary. Her Lazarus act was as unforeseeable as it was jaw dropping. Even her internal polls, apparently, had her down 11 going into voting today. I still haven’t seen the data that explain what the hell turned that around for her.

From my vantage point, Obama did nothing wrong. He played the gracious handsome frontrunner to a T. He looked and sounded like a melange of Kennedy and Dr. King. Even his concession speech tonight was brilliant. There was no Dean scream. He didn’t even rise to the bait as Team Clinton’s attacked his “false hopes” and “fairy tale” campaign. You can argue in retrospect that he badly misplayed the expectations game, but as movement candidate reaching for the Big Mo, you can’t fault him for trumpeting his tidal wave.

Obama did his job. Clinton just pulled a rabbit out of her hat.

Clearly, her victory came with the support of her sisters in arms. Fifty seven percent of the New Hampshire Democratic electorate were women and they gave her a nine point edge. That’s pretty much the ballgame.

Obama romped with the under 25 crowd, who again showed up. And he won with independents, as expected.

Did too many of them think the Democratic race was in the bag — a 13 point spread in the polls will do that to a voter — and defect to the McCain/Romney matchup?

Or was it that independent women boycotted the GOP’s warmongers’ penis party and cast their lot with Hillary?

Or maybe it was the quiet racism of the Bradley effect.

Who knows?!?!

There’s a mystery here that still begs explanation. What’s terribly clear tonight, however, is that Democrats now have a world-class race on their hands — which is probably good for the eventual nominee, and the party.

There will be a giga-ton of organizing going on nationwide between now and February fifth, to boost turnout, goose the youth vote, and bring new people into the process. The much discussed “enthusiasm gap” between Democrats and Republicans seems destined to grow.

And this race isn’t likely — or is at least less likely — to devolve into nasty mudfight, now that Clinton will no longer be tempted/forced to resort to desperate measures in the next weeks just to stay alive.

As a fan of politics as sport I feel like we all just witnessed something remarkable tonight. Doug Flutie’s hail mary comes to mind. And I think New Hampshire did progressives a tremendous favor by insisting Obama’s path to the nomination be something other than a cakewalk.

The competition is already making each of these candidates into stronger politicians. The Tin Woman showed us her heart yesterday — Terry McAuliffe called it “the humanizing moment” — and today says she “found her voice.” (Leave be notions tonight that a 60 year old woman should have found her voice a couple decades ago — she did win, after all.)

Obama is going to have to dig deep — and perhaps show us a little earthiness to match his ethereal oratory.

On to Nevada! May the best candidate win.

Before the 2008 primary/caucus schedule got squeezed to within an inch of 2007, there was a nifty national strategy available to candidates: Bank votes in big states by absentee ballot before Iowa and New Hampshire have a chance to upend national public opinion.

I was speaking to strategist Chris Lehane earlier this year and he outlined the way this strategy might work out:

“There could be more Democrats who will vote absentee in Los Angeles county than Democrats who cast votes in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina combined. And they could vote before the first caucus in Iowa.”

Well, that was when the Iowa caucus was scheduled for next Monday, January 14.

As it stands, California’s absentee voters, who make up roughly 40 percent of the primary electorate, will be getting their ballots later this week, perhaps tomorrow. If everything goes according to the polling, that’s the day after Barack Obama will have sealed his second victory over Hillary Clinton in a romp.

All of which means that Obama can now start locking in his Big Mo before he ever gets to South Carolina or Nevada. California loves to vote for a winner. And there’s something Schwarzenegger-ian about Obama’s sunny post-partisanship. Even if Clinton somehow forges a comeback between now and Palmetto State, Obama will have been busy cherry picking from the motherlode of convention delegates.

This is similarly bad news for Rudy Giuliani. His big state gamble will be looking worse and worse if John McCain emerges victorious tonight. Like Obama his win could beget a much bigger win among the Golden State’s GOP and independent absentee voters.

There was talk that the revamped primary schedule might minimize the importance of the tiny early states. Right now Iowa and New Hampshire are looking like the butterflies whose flapping wings will give rise to Obama’s perfect storm.

Four statistics blew me away tonight:

1. Obama beat Hillary among women voters 35 to 30 percent.
2. Amid record Democratic turnout, as many people under 30 showed up to caucus as those over 65.
3. Sixty percent of the GOP electorate in Iowa were born-again Christians.
4. Rudy Giuliani finished with a mere 4,013 votes, in sixth place, with less than half of the support of Ron Paul.

Taking them in order:

One:
Hillary lost tonight to Barack Obama by 8 points — a margin just as wide as Mitt Romney catastrophic shortfall against Mike Huckabee.

And Obama beat her eight ways to Sunday. He edged her out among Democrats 32/31, and cleaned her clock among independents (44/17) and wayward Republicans (41/10). He beat her among people making less than $15,000 (37/30) and more than $100,000 (41/19). He beat her among health-care voters (34/30) and suburban voters (30/25).

Most astounding however, he beat her among her core supporters, women, by five points. What more can I say than — in a night of mind boggling statistics — that that’s the stat of the night.

A black man did this. In a state that’s 96 percent white. This is truly a historic night in America.

Two:
The turnout on the Democratic side was unreal. It soared from 124,000 in 2004 to 230,000 in 2008. And that’s all about the man who won.

Obama’s been drawing record crowds from San Francisco to Des Moines — but there was always the question of whether he could produce a similar effect among real live voters.

He did so in a way that no one predicted. 57 percent of the caucus goers tonight had never caucused before. Most impressive: As many people under thirty showed up as senior citizens.

That’s fucking nuts is what that is. That’s the Rock the Vote political wet dream that never ever comes true… actually coming true.
What this portends for Obama as a national candidate is something truly special. He’s not only proven that he can draw the support of independents and open-minded Republicans. He’s the one guy who can make the Democratic pie higher, bringing new, unlikely voters into the fold. If he could replicate this kind of support among young people in a general election, it’s game over.

Three:
The Religious Right has found their candidate. The evangelical vote in the Republican caucus is usually 40 percent. Tonight it was 60 percent.

I give Mike Huckabee a lot of credit. He’s run the kind of grassroots campaign that’s not supposed to be possible in this era. Outspent 15:1, his earthy, inclusive plain-spoken authenticity won hearts and minds — and his faith-based network of supporters turned out in droves, beating back the best organization money can buy.

With Romney effectively out of the way, I’m not sure anybody else can stop this guy. Certainly not in South Carolina, where, if the churched vote behaves the way they did tonight, he’ll clobber a John McCain, no matter what happens in New Hampshire.

Four:
Rudy Giluliani is done. His slot — the maverick warmonger — is going to be filled by John McCain by the time Florida comes around. He’s executing the most amazingly misguided electoral strategy I can remember. Bravo and good riddance.

Closing thoughts
Obama scored two huge victories tonight. He not only popped Clinton’s aura of inevitability, he also beat Edwards roundly enough to establish himself as the only true anti-Clinton. So not only is Clinton wounded heading into New Hampshire, but the ABC (anyone but Clinton) vote has found its standard bearer — and his name isn’t John Edwards.

Which is all to say that even if Clinton makes a miraculous recovery in the next five days, I think enough of Edwards’ vote is going to migrate to Obama that it’s not going to make a difference. New Hampshire is his to lose.

And fond goodbyes…
Part of me, here, is going to miss the grand patrician stylings of Chris Dodd, here.

And Joe Biden, I think I’ll miss you most of all.

The smart money — not to mention the latest polls — gives an edge to Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee in tonight’s Iowa caucuses.

But take a couple hundred thousand Midwesterners, pack them into gyms and libraries and town halls on a frigid Iowa night, add a heaping measure of peer pressure to the equation, and, well, anything can happen.

Here are five unlikely results you that shouldn’t be shocked to see when the final precinct tallies come in:

1) John Edwards Wins Going Away

No one in presidential campaign history has ever worked a state like John Edwards has worked Iowa. No one. But for a brief hiatus for the 2004 general election, Edwards has been campaigning there non-stop since early 2003. He’s answered more questions from more voters at more diners and summer cookouts — in every last corner of the state — than Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama combined. (more…)

Endorsing the “undocumented” immigrants in 2001: “They make a big contribution to the life of the city.”

To his credit, it was a few days before 9/11, which probably changed his mind about this … as it did about gun rights apparently.