All eyes are on New Hampshire this weekend as the candidates for their Party’s Presidential nomination hustle for last minute votes.  The Sunday shows were full of POTUS candidates, live from NH.  “Watching television” is slang for “viewing Presidential campaign advertisements interrupted only by brief intrusions of football, basketball, and cooking shows”.  The bars are full of lapel-stickered campaign volunteers, the roads are littered with “wild” lawn signs, and there is an airplane dragging a gigantic banner with “Ron Paul: Revolution” in the sky.  Every hotel room in southern New Hampshire is booked through Tuesday night. 

Granite Staters with any sense are in Florida for the week.

Most of the local networks carried the back-to-back Presidential debates last night, with six Republicans (McCain, Thompson, Paul, Romney, Huckabee, and Giuliani) and four Democrats (Edwards, Obama, Richardson, Clinton) participating.  As if this weren’t enough, the Republican candidates will go back at each other tonight in a debate on FOXNEWS.

The story for the Democrats is the Obama-Clinton Battle Royale.  Senator Clinton has tried to rachet up the rhetoric against the Illinois Senator in the past days, constantly reminding New Hampshire that she has “the experience to lead”.  I spotted a huge billboard that simply has a photo of Senator Clinton with the word “Ready” on it.  But the Obama juggernaut seems to be gaining steam.  The RCP Average has Senator Obama with a 3.4% Granite State lead in the most recent polling since his big victory in Iowa.  The crowds at his events have been overwhelming without the “clown car” style, small room/”big crowd” effect stuff that many campaigns rely upon for impressions.  Barack Obama has all the energy in the Democratic primary, and if New Hampshire breaks his way on Tuesday night, he may be unstoppable.

On the Republican side, the race is a free-for-all.  The RCP Average gives Senator John McCain a 4.6% lead over former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.  “Mac is Back” has become the chant at the burgeoning McCain Town Hall meetings and he seemed at ease last night as he fired shot after shot at Mitt Romney at last evening’s debate.  It’s hard to image tonight’s debate featuring anything less.  With the chattering class coalescing around the idea that ”Mitt is done if he doesn’t win New Hampshire”, Romney needs a win on Tuesday. 

With McCain, Huckabee, Romney, Giuliani, and Thompson all having at least somewhat plausible paths to the nomination, we are going to start tracking delegate counts here at The Everyday Republican.  With the Giuliani Strategy still waiting to be tested - perhaps correctly - and the spat between Romney, McCain, and Huckabee still hot - Convention delegates are gold.  According to MSNBC, the GOP candidate needs 1,259 delegates to win.  Huckabee is out in front with 30 from his Iowa victory, Romney took 15 for winning the Wyoming caucus yesterday, Thompson has 3 and Duncan Hunter has 1 delegate.

I am headed over to get some photographs of the spectacle outside the debate on the St. Anselm College campus tonight.  I will post them up here when I return.