Live From My Living Room

6:32pm: On CNN, Lou Dobbs has taken a break from election coverage and is instead reading emails he's gotten talking about how awesome he is, for example, "Lou, please don't run for president, where the hell would I turn for the truth?" Wow.

6:33pm: Where's my $10.99 unlimited topping pizza!?!?

6:37pm: Weird. Once I blogged that the doorbell rang.

6:40pm: Fox News now has its election ticker up, and precincts are coming in. With eight percent of precincts in, Clinton leads Obama 38 to 36%, and McCain leads Romney 38 to 28.

6:44pm: Over at MSNBC, Pat Buchanan is going against Air America host Rachel Maddow about whether the Clinton crying was a story or not. Buchanan says it's huge, Maddow says it's not. Olbermann says the missed story was all the attacks she launched on Obama AFTER the crying.

6:46pm: Wow, still analyzing the Clinton crying.

6:48pm: The talk among panelists Joe Scarborough and Howard Fineman at MSNBC is that McCain won't be the frontrunner out of this, because he doesn't have as much support in SC and Michigan as he does in New Hampshire.

6:51pm: All the polls close in about ten minutes. Over at New Hampshire station WMUR-TV, they are not showing any early numbers at all. The station explains the policy is not to show any numbers until all the polls are closed; and "the early numbers don't mean anything anyway".

6:55pm: FUN FACT: The Obama campaign tells WMUR it has issued more than 600 credentials for the Obama speech following the NH results tonight. Meanwhile, Obama campaign folks have tamped down expectations, saying it's going to be a lot closer tonight than people think.

6:57pm: Just as I was typing that, my main man Stiles called to say "It's not looking good for Obama, man."

7:01pm: FUN FACT: New Hampshire population is 1.3 million; Bexar County, 1.5 million

7:02pm: Clinton campaign confirms it is adding Austin's Roy Spence, a big ad man (and co-founder of GSD&M) to her campaign team.

7:03pm: Polls are closed. CNN already projecting that Edwards finishes third.

7:07pm: Tom Brokaw returns for tonight's coverage... he talks about how compressed the schedule is now compared to previous years, and that hurts Bill Clinton's efforts in trying to bring Clinton back up.

7:09pm: With 10% reporting, Mike Gravel is trailing Joe Biden ... who has already dropped out.

7:12pm: MSNBC's Lee Cowan is covering the Obama campaign. He's asked whether the results that are too close to call right now is bad news for Obama. Cowan admits it's "a bit of a nailbiter" right now.

FUN FACT: Lee Cowan took hits today after NBC anchor Brian Williams revealed that Cowan said it was hard not to like Obama.

7:15pm: MSNBC calls the Republican primary for John McCain. So does Fox. So does CNN. With 13% in, he's leading Romney by a comfortable nine percentage points.
"A lot of bad news for Romney," says MSNBC's Ron Allen at Romney HQ.

7:19pm: Meanwhile, none of the major cable networks are covering this, but C-SPAN is airing live the Rudy Giuliani "victory" speech in New Hampshire right now. He's coming in fourth right now.

FUN FACT: Giuliani has sunk to 4th place in Florida, which was his "firewall" to stop the losing to other candidates. But -- Newsweek's Howard Fineman just said "he could still win Florida!"

7:21pm: Clinton now opens up her lead on Obama to four points, 40 to 36%. It's still at 13% reporting.

7:27pm: Texan Mark McKinnon, chief media strategist for John McCain, is doing a live interview on Fox right now wearing a fedora, I believe. Is that a fedora? He says "This is a lucky hat, I have to wear it."
"At least you have an excuse for it," says Fox's Chris Wallace.

7:34pm: We're playing the waiting game right now. C-SPAN is showing McCain's stage, where a crowded room is waiting for McCain to make his speech. The other networks just have pundits and analysts talking non stop until something becomes clear on the Democratic side.

7:36pm: Sweet. We're looking at a map on CNN that shows where Clinton's doing well and where Obama's doing well. Clinton is carrying Manchester right now, and it's the most populous city, so that bodes well for her.

7:41pm: The punditry is already saying that Clinton CAN portray this as a win, whether she wins or not, because the results will be close enough to where it's not a "thumpin".

7:44pm: 18% reporting now, it's at Clinton 40% to Obama 36%. ABC says Romney is set to speak in 15 minutes. Wonder how he spins another second place finish.

7:46pm: Good thing I have half of my pizza left. It's gonna be awhile until they call the Democratic winner for tonight.

7:50pm: If you haven't been using a town-by-town breakdown map to see where the results have been coming in from and what they are in each New Hampshire town, recommend this one from Politico, it's really easy to use, just roll over the town you want to see for details.

7:51pm: Mitt Romney is making his 2nd place speech now. At 21%, he's losing to McCain here by double-digits.

FUN FACT: See all those foam "Mitt Mitt's" in the crowd? You can buy one here for $7.

7:57pm: Romney wraps up. Just prior to tonight, no Massachusetts governor has ever lost the New Hampshire primary.

8:00pm: Overall with 26% reporting, Clinton leads 40% to 35%... but in Manchester, she's rocked. With 75% of precincts reporting in the populous Manchester, she's leading 45% to 31%.

8:01pm: Huckabee taking the stage now, it looks like Huckabee will come in third, though the "Decision Desks" at the various networks haven't officially called it yet. He's spinning this as a victory because he never expected to do well here, a few weeks ago he was in 6th place, etc. "You've given us so much more than we could have imagined just a few days or weeks ago," Huckabee said. "We've done better than this ol' Southern boy could have possibly done in New England."

FUN FACT: Manchester, with population 110,000, is slightly smaller than Waco.

8:08pm: Huckabee is thanking the New Hampshire crowd for its hospitality.

FUN FACT: New Hampshire only has seven counties. Which means the map breakdowns show individual TOWNS. I'm going back to change the references I made to "counties" earlier. BTW, Texas has 254 counties.

8:14pm: John McCain takes the stage to make his victory speech to the theme from "Rocky". Crowd chants "Mac is back, Mac is back!" McCain thanks his wife Cindy and his seven children. "Tonight, we sure showed 'em what a comeback looks like," McCain says with a smile.

8:19pm: McCain still speechifying, Obama and Clinton still too close to call. At 37% of precincts reporting, Clinton holds a three percentage point lead over Obama.

8:22pm: McCain's the big winner tonight, but he's reading a long speech that uses words like "modernity"... I fear he's losing his audience.

8:27pm: McCain's still going. Oh. My. Goodness.

8:28pm: Clearly I'm not the only one who thought that was the worst victory speech I've seen in this campaign season. Here's what the MSNBC pundits said, in brief: "It looked like every adviser he had ever had had given him one paragraph, and he read them all!" "After the third time he tripped up I thought oh just stop talking" "It was not a good performance" "It deflated his victory"

FUN FACT: Studies show an audience can remember only three or four things you present in a talk. (I think McCain presented at least 47 things.)

8:34pm: WHY OH WHY are these results so close tonight? Exit polling analysis shows Clinton's doing MUCH better among women in New Hampshire. She led Obama among women 47% to 34%.

8:42pm: Polls have been closed for nearly two hours now and it's still unclear who is gonna win the Democratic primary. Clinton is winning the major cities, but the college towns haven't come in completely. For example, Dartmouth College is in Hanover, which we're still waiting for.

FUN FACT: Famous Dartmouth College alums include my hero, Mr. Rogers, Grey's Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes, and C. Everett Koop. Oh, and it's the fictional alma mater of Michael Corleone.

8:50pm: Ron Paul takes the stage now, he's in a close race against Rudy Giuliani for fourth places here in NH. CNN is carrying Paul live. Fox News opts not to even take the Paul speech. Neither does MSNBC.

8:59pm: From Politicalwire: Why were nearly all polls over the last five days wrong about Obama's growing lead? For what it's worth, we now know that the exit polls showed Clinton and Obama tied at 39% each, with Edwards at 16%.

9:05pm: Apparently Bill Richardson made his concession speech and said "the fight goes on", but the speech wasn't carried live, so I don't know what else he said.

9:10pm:Chris Matthews is predicting the Clinton's may use some "gamesmanship" to create a reality in which Clinton wins, even before the results are completely in.

9:13pm: John Edwards expected to speak in just a few minutes after a distant third place finish tonight.

9:16pm: John Edwards now appearing at his campaign headquarters. "Two races down. Forty eight states left to go," Edwards said. He spins this by downplaying Iowa and New Hampshire -- saying that the voices of the 48 other states need to be heard.

9:22pm: My friend DP asks, "Is this the end for Fred?" It rhymes!

9:27pm: Edwards finishes his speech by saying that he is definitely in this race until his party's convention.

9:29pm: If you were thinking to yourself, is that Mike Delfino, the plumber from Desperate Housewives, standing there behind John Edwards, the answer is yes. The actor's name is James Denton.

FUN FACT: Denton's character is currently in rehab for prescription pill addiction. Denton has a degree in advertising as a television/journalism major from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

9:34pm: HILLARY CLINTON THE PROJECTED WINNER of the New Hampshire primary, according to NBC. CNN IS NOT projecting a winner yet. "The reason we can't call this race is that hundreds of votes in Northern New Hampshire haven't come in," says John King of CNN. "We also want to see what happens in other precincts that haven't come in."

9:37pm: Associated Press projected it for Clinton, but CNN is still NOT projecting the race. Is CNN in denial? John King's going crazy with his interactive map of New Hampshire right now.

9:40pm: Okay, ABC News is also NOT calling this race for Clinton yet. Again, AP and NBC have projected Clinton is the winner. CNN and ABC are NOT projecting the winner just yet.

9:42pm: Fox News says "it's the tears"!!! Pundit Bill Kristol says when Clinton cried or "pretended to cry", that helped humanize her and draw women voters. Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe says the crying helped too.

9:45pm: Barack Obama expected to come out shortly to address the crowd.

9:47pm: Obama taking the stage before Hillary Clinton...CNN joining in projecting Clinton the victor. This means we have a real race on our hands!

9:50pm: I wonder whether Obama had to retool his speech, since his campaign was likely expecting a win as everyone else was. Though, his crowd is just as fired up as if he had won. He congratulates Clinton and calls for a round of applause for her.

9:54pm: Just a reminder as we get near 10pm, KVUE anchor Tyler Sieswerda is IN New Hampshire right now -- and is about to report live from Manchester.

9:58pm: "There has never been anything false about hope," Obama says in another speech interrupted by screaming supporters. The line is in response to Clinton at the debate Saturday night, when she said "let's take a reality break here" and referred to some of Obama's statements by calling it "false hope".

10:02pm: "Yes we can!" is becoming another Obama rallying cry. This reminds me of the "Day without an Immigrant" rallies across the country a few years ago, where millions took to the streets chanting "Si, Se Puede!"

10:04pm: As Obama wraps up, we await tonight's winner, Hillary Clinton. I'll blog that in a fresh post so we can bulk it up with some analysis. Thanks for reading!