8 Questions New Hampshire Could Answer

a Democratic pollster, put it, "He is hotter, cooler and

newer."

5. Should Clinton have gone negative once she lost Iowa?

The experts say this is the wrong question. At a time when the Clinton campaign is coming under severe criticism, there is widespread agreement that the decision not to start airing negative ads was wise.

With just five days between Iowa and New Hampshire, there wasn't enough time for a barrage of negative ads to do much damage to Obama.

Beyond that, experts say, she would have looked desperate and might have made her plight worse.

What many strategists wonder is why the Clinton camp did not go after Obama before Iowa. Better to stop him as he is starting to surge than after a big victory.

Now, they say, she may have no choice. A loss in New Hampshire would force her to put real money behind ads calling Obama's record and experience into question.

6. If McCain wins, who is the Republican front-runner?

There is less consensus among the experts on this than on any other question. "There isn't one," a GOP strategist wrote. "Ask me after Michigan," e-mailed another.

A Republican pollster wrote that it would be Huckabee and McCain, while a Democratic strategist said that, depending on the order of finish and the margins, there could be three co-front-runners by Wednesday: McCain, Huckabee, and either Romney or Giuliani.

The closest thing to a consensus is that a McCain victory would make him the tenuous front-runner. That left it to John Weaver, who was McCain's chief strategist until he and other top officials left the campaign during a shake-up last summer, to offer this e-mailed observation: "John McCain, just as we planned, though we didn't plan on the planners not being there too!"