It’s interesting how much more interested the press seems to be in the Democratic race than in the GOP one. When after Iowa there was tons of attention showered on Barack Obama and nothing on Huckabee, I figured that was just part of the vast pro-McCain conspiracy. But after the media got the McCain victory it was hoping for, there’s still more talk about the Democratic result.

The thing of it is that the Republican race is really much more interesting. It’s a bigger field of semi-viable contenders and it’s very unpredictable. What’s more, there appears to be much more separating the Republican nominees from each other in terms of policy and approach — Mike Huckabee is really, really different from Rudy Giuliani. My feeling has kind of been that I, personally, tend to focus on the Democratic field perhaps a bit more than it deserves because I’m a liberal and I’ve got a mostly liberal audience, but actually it seems that everyone is playing it my way and I’m not really sure why.

Barack Obama’s new refrain “yes we can” just so happens to be an English translation of the “si se puede” chant one might associate with a crucial union in Nevada.

It’s worth saying that if a month ago, Team Obama had said their plan was to win out of the two first states and go from there, I think people would have considered that a prudently optimistic plan for victory. The temptation to massively overreact to the last thing that happened is something I warned about during the Iowa-NH interregnum, and the same is true today. In an election where most Democrats think there’s more than one candidate in the field who could make a good nominee, I think we should expect to see a lot of volatility.

As we’ve seen from the exit polls, she pulled ahead based on strong support from women.

UPDATE: I should say we’re seeing some talk of a “Wilder effect” possibly doing Obama in. I don’t buy that. If you look at the breakdown of the results, you’d need to believe that white women, but not white men, are inclined to lie to pollsters about that. More likely we’re looking at a combination of gender backlash, plus the fact that Obama was so widely perceived as likely to win led independents to vote for John McCain in the GOP primary.

I heard most of Mitt Romney’s speech earlier tonight and he sounded a lot like the reasonably appealing moderate technocrat I voted for in 2002. Certainly, much more like that guy than like the “three-legged stool” New Model Wingnut he’s been running as. Meanwhile, John Judis notes that despite Romney’s more moderate record, he actually succeeded in convincing New Hampshire voters that he was more conservative and “bested McCain only among voters who considered themselves ‘very conservative’ and were ‘enthusiastic’ about the Bush administration. In New Hampshire, these voters were a decided minority.”

If Rommey had run on his record, in short, he might have won. On the other hand, we saw in 2000 what happens in a GOP primary where moderate Republicans and independents go for John McCain — he loses to the conservative. But with Mike Huckabee in the field, it’s going to be hard for Romney to consolidate social conservatives against McCain. Of course, it also remains to be seen if Rudy Giuliani can rally his forces to any extent.

My friend Emily Thorson has trained in the twisted logic of managing an Iowa caucus and has this to say about Clinton’s New Hampshire rebound:

The TV coverage I’ve been watching has implied that New Hampshire is a crazy comeback surprise and Iowa is somehow the “real” result. I think they’re wrong. Iowa is the anomaly, because of the bizarre public forum that is the Iowa caucus. You know why Hillary does worse in a caucus? Because women who are leaning Hillary go to the caucus with their husbands, and he says “Let’s go for Obama” or “Let’s go for Edwards” and she says “Well, all right then” because she doesn’t want to spend the next hour sitting alone in the Hillary group. I’ve sat through a caucus. This is how it works.

Clinton herself mooted that theory, I believe.

Obviously, polls predicting a big Obama win in NH were wrong. It’s going to be close, and it’s quite possibly going to be for Clinton. 25 I thought:

I wouldn’t be surprised if this inane “Clinton crying” pseudo-story winds up redounding to her benefit; it’s a stark reminder of how much sexist BS there is out there which, in turn, gets people back to thinking about how the first woman president in American history would be a pretty damn transformative event all on its own terms.

It seems to me that Hillary Clinton’s return to dominance among women bears that out. I don’t think pissing off Chris Matthews is a good enough reason to pull the lever for Clinton, but I can certainly understand the impulse.

Clinton and Obama are tight. I need to go to ABC’s studios pretty soon to film this appearance and may not be able to liveblog the moment when we get to know the outcome.

FINAL UPDATE: Hillary Clinton delivers her victory speech:

11:36 PM: Talking with Tom Brokaw, Chris Matthews lamented the fact that the pollsters and pundits got it all wrong. Brokaw suggested that the results today should cause the media to reevaluate its desire to “stampede the process,” and he cautioned the media to “wait for the voters to make their judgment”:

BROKAW: You know what I think we’re going to have to do?

MATTHEWS: Yes sir?

BROKAW: Wait for the voters to make their judgment.

MATTHEWS: Well what do we do then in the days before the ballot? We must stay home, I guess.

BROKAW: No, no we don’t stay home. There are reasons to analyze what they’re saying. We know from how the people voted today, what moved them to vote. You can take a look at that. There are a lot of issues that have not been fully explored during all this.

But we don’t have to get in the business of making judgments before the polls have closed. And trying to stampede in effect the process.

Look, I’m not just picking on us, it’s part of the culture in which we live these days. I think that the people out there are going to begin to make judgments about us if we don’t begin to temper that temptation to constantly try to get ahead of what the voters are deciding, in many cases, as we learned in New Hampshire when they went into the polling booth today or in the last three days. They were making decisions very late.

Watch it:

10:47 PM: CNN and Fox News have declared Clinton the winner.

10:42 PM: Bill Kristol: “It’s the tears. She pretended to cry. The women felt sorry for her. And she won.”

10:32 PM: MSNBC and the AP have called the Democratic race for Clinton. CNN and Fox News are not yet making a projection.

10:15 PM: With 62 percent of precincts reporting in the Democratic contest, Clinton has 39 percent of the vote and Obama has 36 percent.

10:10 PM: One of the analysts CNN has brought in to comment on the primaries tonight is former Christian Coalition director Ralph Reed. Reed gained notoriety for being a “close associate” of fallen lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and suffered an “embarrassing defeat in his effort to win the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor in Georgia” in 2006. Describing McCain’s win, Reed said that the senator “went fetal” after he “experienced the setbacks of the national level.” After confusion from the CNN host, Reed explained that McCain “went to the state that delivered for him eight years ago.”

10:03 PM: Fox pundit Nina Easton makes this observation: “[McCain] talked a lot about the war on terror and talked about national security. When you listen to Democratic candidates, that’s not an issue that you hear a lot about.” Watch it:

9:32 PM: ABC reports that Rudy Giuliani poured in great efforts to try to win New Hampshire, yet he is currently running fourth with 9 percent, just barely ahead of Ron Paul. Still, Joe Scarborough declared that “it looks right now like Rudy Giuliani wins as well as John McCain.” Watch it:

Atrios notes Howard Fineman said, “This is perfect for Giuliani…”

9:15 PM: With 34 percent of precincts reporting in the Democratic primary, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) is currently in the lead with 40 percent of the vote. Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) is in second with 36 percent.

8:50 PM: MSNBC reported that “more than half of the Republicans in our exit poll say they are either dissatisfied or downright angry with this President. Only 2 in 5 were satisfied and a very small percent were enthusiastic.”

8:49 PM: According to exit polls, “one-third of Democrats named the economy and Iraq as the top issues facing the country, followed by health care. … Republicans were split roughly evenly in naming the economy and Iraq as the nation’s top issue, with illegal immigration and terrorism close too.”

8:42 PM: CNN reports that Romney has already called McCain to congratulate him. According to the Huckabee campaign, Romney never called them after Iowa.

8:40 PM: Bill Kristol is quick to declare McCain’s victory was “because of the surge.”

David Petraeus deserves a lot of credit — most of it of course for improving the situation in Iraq, but I think he ended up being a great asset to John McCain because McCain was such a staunch supporter of Petraeus and the surge.

Watch it:

8:29 PM: New Hampshire’s registered independents are able to vote in either primary. Early exit poll data “indicated six in 10 opted for the Democratic contest.”

8:11 PM: Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC have declared Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) the winner of the GOP primary, with former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney in second.

8:01 PM: Polls have officially closed, and CNN has declared that former senator John Edwards will come in third in the Democratic race.

8:00 PM: On MSNBC’s Hardball, Rep. Tom DeLay said Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) “won’t fare well in the South” because he’s a “moderate.” “The moderates have had their day in Iowa and New Hampshire,” he said, which led to this exchange:

MATTHEWS: Well you say the word moderate with a rather unpleasant look on your face. What is a moderate in the Republican Party as you describe that term?

DELAY: Well that’s a person who likes to think a lot.

MATTHEWS: [Laughter] Is that bad news in your party? Too much thought?

Watch it: