Media Blow It Again

NY Post: "Hillary Rodham Clinton scored a surprise come-from-behind victory over Barack Obama in yesterday's New Hampshire primary, resurrecting a political campaign that was on the brink of collapse."

Daily News: "A Clinton loyalist said internal polling found New Hampshire women were overcome with sympathy when Clinton choked up publicly in a diner Monday under the stress of her expected loss."

John Dickerson: "Democrats like a fighter. Maybe that's the simplest reason Hillary Clinton pulled out a surprise victory in New Hampshire. Before her campaign even arrived here, her aides were promising they'd take the fight to Obama. In the five days between the two contests, the Clinton campaign worked hard to bring Obama down to earth."

On the Republican side, CNN, Fox and MSNBC all declared McCain the victor over Romney at 8:11. That's right, John McCain, who the media geniuses all told us was mortally wounded last summer, battled back with 102 New Hampshire town meetings, despite the fact that he was close to broke. It certainly didn't hurt that the war he champions is going better, or that virtually every Granite State paper endorsed him.

This is a big win for McCain, but the pundits kept insisting that the GOP race is wide open and that Mitt Romney is not done. He might, they said, win Michigan, where his father was governor. But there's no getting around it: Romney, with a huge war chest, had gambled on winning the first two states and lost both, including the one next door to where he was governor. The guy even has a summer home in Wolfeboro.

"Isn't this a devastating defeat for him?" Chris Wallace asked Romney spokesman Kevin Madden.

By the way, 30 percent in exit polls say Romney ran the most unfair campaign. When I was in New Hampshire last week, a number of voters told me they were turned off by Mitt's negative ad bombardment.

One thing is clear: After doing it in 2000, McCain is, again, the president of New Hampshire. But how much of a bounce does he get?

Bill Schneider noted that Mac beat Mitt by a slightly greater margin among Republicans than among independents, showing that John has more of a party base than he did when he lost the nomination to George Bush.

"A decisive victory . . . John McCain is back," said Pat Buchanan, the only pundit last night who has won a New Hampshire primary. But Bill Bennett would say only that McCain was "alive" because conservatives are mad at him over such issues as immigration.

Scarborough quickly interpreted this as "perfect" news for Rudolph Giuliani's late-inning strategy. Mike Huckabee wins Iowa, McCain wins New Hampshire, Romney (maybe) wins Michigan, and the race is wide open.

But I know one McCain friend who believes that if McCain wins Michigan next week--and many people forget he won it in 2000--he's got the nomination.