Digest of Reading for New Hampshire

The New Hampshire primaries are here.

First Christmas. Then Iowa. Now this. It's the hap-happiest time of the year.

If you haven't seen these already, I have done the work of collecting the for your "first in the nation primary" reading enjoyment.

"The New New Mitt: New Hampshire voters know Romney's record better than most. That could spell trouble," by Kimberley Strassel in The Wall Street Journal. Fred Barnes adds his analysis Romney's difficulties as a candidate in "The All-Too-Resistible Romney: He has everything going for him but voters" (The Weekly Standard).

Henry Olsen puts Mike Huckabee in an enlightening European context in "The GOP's Time for Choosing: Mike Huckabee would make the party more like Europe's Christian Democrats," (Wall Street Journal). William Kristol, now writing in The New York Times, reflects on the possibilities of a Huckabee presidency ("President Mike Huckabee?"). Ole' Huck is not to be underestimated...by either party.

David Brooks does a good job distinguishing two models of maverick candidate for the independent votes of New Hampshire in "McCain and Obama" (New York Times, January 8, 2007). The most striking passage from "McCain's Promise: It is cruel to compare the senator to most of his Republican competitors," by Dorothy Rabinowitz in The Wall Street Journal is on Obama, "whose stance against terrorism, should he become president, will apparently consist largely of antipoverty programs, reassuring the world of our peaceful intentions, and attending Islamic Conferences."

In National Review Online, Frank Cannon makes the case for John McCain as the candidate who follows most faithfully in the tradition of Ronald Reagan ("A Reagan Heir:McCain is closer to the spirit of Reaganism than his critics realize").

Finally, though you may not have noticed, a few days ago the Republican Party in Wyoming tried to attract attention by inserting it's caucuses between Iowa and New Hampshire. But almost no one campaigned there and it brought almost no news coverage. Hmmm. Interested? Read "Whither Wyoming? A primary no one seems to have noticed" by John McCormack in The Weekly Standard. It might be fun.