1. MIKE HUCKABEE CAN WIN WITHOUT WINNING. No one thinks Huckabee can repeat his Iowa win here. But after polls placed him as low as fourth right after Iowa, and with everyone noticing that New Hampshire does not welcome him with evangelical arms, second place or even a strong third will keep his buzz alive, because it will mean he has appealed to a wider GOP base.

2. OBAMA HAS THE MOST TO GAIN. Another win will spark talk of inevitability. A Hillary rebound or an Edwards win will leave the Democrat picture as scrambled as the Republicans’.

3. NEW HAMPSHIRE IS NOT A MUST-WIN FOR ROMNEY. Fair or not, Huckabee will face continued bombardment, and if he is bloodied, someone will be the beneficiary. Another second place finish leaves Romney looking at South Carolina eleven days later, where he could pass a wounded Huckabee.

4. HUCKABEE’S POPULISM CARD IS ENORMOUSLY RISKY. His tall tales of a largely suffering middle class will either resonate or blow up in his face. It may take Michigan, Nevada and South Carolina to yield that answer, but if Huckabee wins or flames out, the class-consciousness act will be a big factor.

5. A MCCAIN WIN IS OF DUBIOUS MEANING. He won New Hampshire in 2000 and was soon gone. This is a state filled with Republicans who share McCain’s quirkiness and ideological vagueness. The states ahead are filled with GOP voters who will admire him for his war support, but require more than he offers on the border, campaign finance reform and ironically, torture.

6. NEW HAMPSHIRE IS NOT A MUST-WIN FOR HILLARY. Another third place finish would be very hard to bounce back from, but a strong second is at least an improvement from Iowa and prevents Obama and Edwards from ganging up on her from above. She has too much money and too much machine to be done in this early, especially with Clinton-friendly Michigan mere days away.

7. BILL RICHARDSON “WON” THE SATURDAY NIGHT DEBATE. I don’t mean he lofted himself into contention, but he cut through the mind-numbing “change” mantra with a relaxed, amiable delivery of several well-crafted points. He also asked the Democrat Question of 2008: Why have voters shunned his far superior résumé– and Joe Biden’s and Chris Dodd’s– to drink at the trough of star power?

8. ON TOO MANY ISSUES, RON PAUL IS A DODDERING FOOL: While he is a deserving hero for his small-government libertarianism, every Paul appearance is still a fresh occasion to remember what a nutjob he truly is when it comes to some basics. The Republican field is savaging all Muslims? Islam attacks us because we attack them? This insane moral equivalency (“How would we feel if China did this to us with good intentions?”) establishes his fringe status as purely of his own making.

9. THE RUDY STRATEGY IS IN JEOPARDY. Florida, the basket holding so many Giuliani eggs, is on a very distant horizon. Momentum by Huckabee or McCain or a resurgence by Romney would invite a growing snowball narrative he may not be able to melt, even with a Florida win January 29.

10. WE NEED MORE TWO-PARTY DEBATE NIGHTS. Seeing six Republicans and four Democrats in rapid succession on the same stage in the same night was a valuable opportunity for voters to compare not just the individuals, but the entire fields. If we get down to two races of two people each, we should do it again– maybe all four at once. Imagine Hillary being challenged by Obama AND Huckabee, or Romney under pressure from Giuliani AND Edwards. Almost too delicious to imagine.

11. FRED THOMPSON IS NOT DEAD. Yet. His debate performances are more than adequate, and he may be the only real challenge to Huckabee in South Carolina.

12. AMERICA IS LOVING THIS. Far from tired after more than a year of hardcore horserace talk, the public is lapping up an extended primary drama. Several states have been teased into believing their votes to be cast in the coming weeks might actually count.

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