This is as bad as it could be for Mitt. It wasn’t a close finish, and it’s hard to see how his numbers in New Hampshire go anywhere but south. As for McCain, granted that he couldn’t lose, he had a great night. Fred decided to court Iowa assiduously whereas Mister Maverick refused to drink the ethanol, and the difference between Fred’s courtship and McCain’s disdain is currently one point. Most of the Thompson-Giuliani vote in NH and some of the Romney support, too, will migrate to Maverick over the next few days.
Where I disagree with Ramesh is in the idea that this provides an opening for Rudy. Assuming Huck manages a strong third in NH, we’ll be locked into a Huck/McCain fight and anybody looking for a neither-of-the-above is unlikely to settle on Rudy, who’d be at least as polarizing as those two.
I’d also disagree with Ramesh’s idea that this was a good night for Christians reaching across the aisle. It would be truer to say that for a proportion of Huck’s followers there is no aisle: he’s their kind of Christian, and all the rest – foreign policy, health care, mass transit, whatever – is details. This is identity politics of a type you don’t often see on the Republican side.