Penn Blogs on the New Hampshire Primary

The blogosphere and American media are abuzz about today's primary in New Hampshire. Coverage begins at 6pm on MSNBC and 8pm on CNN.

Penn blogs have been no different in the discussion of today's important primary. Stu Stein over at The Un-Wharton explains what has been behind his recent coverage,

I rarely become very interested in politics, but I'll be honest, I really like Obama. I think the reason that I like him so much is because he is the opposite in every respect from Bush.

Stu recently discussed why he liked Obama and provided some highlights of the great 20min interview that Obama had with Brian Williams on NBC Nightly News last night. Stu had previously discussed Where Hillary's Brand Buckled in Iowa.

The Appletonian, written by a Penn senior from Wisconsin, is a steadfast Rudy "9/11" Giuliani supporter and yesterday came out with his prediction:

We won't know the New Hampshire results for at least another 24 hours, but here's my prediction of what will go down.

Democrats:
Barack Obama: 44%
Hillary Clinton: 32%
John Edwards: 20%
Bill Richardson: 3%
Dennis Kucinich: 1%

Republicans:
John McCain: 35%
Mitt Romney: 32%
Mike Huckabee: 12%
Rudy Giuliani: 11%
Ron Paul: 8%
Fred Thompson: 2%

That seems to be a pretty good prediction given the slew of polls we have been seeing since Iowa. It will be interesting to see if Ron Paul beats Giuliani like he did in Iowa. That would be a big defeat for Rudy and hurt his chances in Florida.

rzklkng, over at Akkam's Razor, discussed how turnout and share of the vote are the real story of the primary:

NH registrations are as follows:

Ind: 44%
Rep: 30%
Dem: 26%

The current polling indicates Independents breaking 2:1 for Democrats, which would give us:

Rep: 45%
Dem: 55%

I suspect NH plays a role in identifying how Independents will vote nationally, just like Iowa informs about rural voters. It will also serve to determine which messages (hope, change, experience, status quo, fear, etc.) resonate with those voters.

Over at Albertgate, Albert Sun who is a a rising sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania discusses the incredible youth voter turnout that we are seeing:

I thought I had had it figured out. Young people didn't vote because they were disgusted with the political process, and when prompted with all bad choices, chose to tune out. But if a candidate can come up with a message promising change, and can do it with the charisma to command attention, kids might tune back in. Is Obama that candidate?

More to come...

~BT