Thoughts on New Hampshire

The exit polls from New Hampshire may keep Mike Huckabee awake tonight. We all know that Huckabee won in Iowa because of the big turn-out of born-again and evangelical voters. And we all knew that Huckabee would carry the evangelical vote in New Hampshire but still lose the primary because there just aren’t enough of them in the granite state. The problem is that Huckabee didn’t win the evangelical vote on Tuesday night. In fact, he tied with McCain and bested Romney by only one point among evangelicals. Now these voters, knowing that Huckabee wasn’t going to win, may have decided not to waste their vote on him. Or the result could indicate that not all evangelicals are alike and it shouldn’t be assumed that all of them will rally to the Baptist preacher and former governor. That thought may only be counteracted by a Sominex for Mr. Huckabee. You might also check out the numbers about church attendance and the Republican vote. The more regularly voters attended church, the more likely they were to support Huckabee and Romney. The inverse was true for McCain. Also, if polls are your thing, check out this post-mortem analysis of the New Hampshire polls, the worst disaster for polling since "Dewey Defeats Truman." Matt Malone, S.J.