It's all well and good for those of us around the nation and internet to weigh in on tonight's Democratic debate. But, what matters for Tuesday is what New Hampshire voters think...and what they will read in their morning papers.

• WMUR: Focus Group Reaction
• Concord Monitor: How the Candidates Did
• The Union Leader: Dems Talk Tough on Getting Bin Laden
• The Union Leader: Independent's Day

All of the Democratic candidates looked tired tonight. No wonder. Check out Hillary's day that appeared in the Concord Monitor(describing how she spent it giving up the stump speeches and instead answering questions from voters for hours.)

Here's Sunday's candidate schedule.

[Update: Debate transcript here.]

This is the moment of the debate. Hillary Clinton responds to John Edwards' defense of Barack Obama (and you are right to wonder if John Edwards is trying to win the nomination if he is spending his time in a debate defending Barack Obama) and his attack on Hillary Clinton (he even insinuated that Hillary should drop out of the race; talk about presmptuous).

Hillary responds with passion. It was reminiscent in style to Ronald Reagan's moment in the 1980 New Hampshire debate after he had lost to George H.W. Bush in Iowa:

I think Democratic partisans will love this moment for Hillary and wonder if John Edwards is still trying to win. I think people who dislike Hillary will call it shrill. Of course that response is sexist. Will the Media reveal its sexism again? I predict they will. I think that is less important than how Democratic partisans react to it.

Update (TL): My favorite clips were where she talked about how words aren't action and how her feelings were hurt when Gibson said she isn't likeable. Also memorable and moving: When she said having the first woman president would be change.

Also check out her Fact Hub for sourcing of her criticisms of Obama because the chair of his NH campaign is a drug company lobbyist and his flip-flopping on the Patriot Act extension and vote to fund the war in Iraq. It also has the details of her record in New Hampshire.

[Update (TL): Debate transcript here.]

[Update: Debate transcript here.]

The Democratic debate is over. Live thread one is here. This thread is for post-debate comments.

What did you think? Who won? Who scored points and who lost them?

Big Tent Democrat says: [More....]

The ABC News debate is on tape delay for Denver, an hour behind the East Coast. But, it's streaming live on WMUR, New Hampshire. So, I'll live blog -- please join in the comments.

8:45 pm: The Democratic candidates came out to do a meet and greet with the Republicans. Rudy and Hillary chatted friend-like, he put his arm on her arm. She and Huckabee also had a warm little moment, he whispered something in her ear. Edwards and McCain were very warm to each other.

9:05: What is this? The debate starts with an ABC news clip? It's on nuclear prolifieration. After watching the clip, the question is how aggressively would you go after al-Qaeda terrorists in Pakistan? Goes to Obama who justifies what he said at one of the first debates. He moves from the defensive to the offensive against Bush but Gibson says he sounds just like Bush.

More...

The Republicans have started. The Dems follow immediately after.

This is an Open Thread.

Wyoming held its Republican caucuses today. Mitt Romney won.

The former Massachusetts governor won eight delegates, former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson got two and California Rep. Duncan Hunter won one, meaning no other candidate could beat Romney. Caucuses were still being held to decide all 12 delegates at stake.

Wyoming only gets 14 delegates at the national convention as a penalty for bumping up the date.

Wyoming Republicans also paid a price for jumping ahead. The Republican National Committee has slashed half of Wyoming's 28 national convention delegates. National party leaders similarly penalized Florida, Michigan, New Hampshire and South Carolina for moving up the dates of their nomination contests.

Romney's son owns a ranch in Wyoming and he and his sons visited the state, although Romney hasn't been there since November. McCain and Giuliani didn't bother to visit.

A poll taken last night and today by CNN and WMUR in New Hampshire has Hillary and Obama tied at 33% each. The AP report on the poll is here.

Obama and Edwards are up 3 points from last week while Hillary is down 1 point.

Full poll results are here. (pdf)

There's a vast difference between Hillary and Obama on the experience question.

(DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY VOTERS ONLY:) Which Democratic candidate do you think has the right experience to be President?

Clinton 46%
Obama 14%
Edwards 13%

As to which candidate is most likely to bring change, the numbers are almost reversed: Obama 41%, Clinton 28%, Edwards 16%

Update [2008-1-5 18:16:37 by Big Tent Democrat]: Research 2000 shows a tie also: [More....]

ARG reflects a big Iowa bounce for Barack Obama:

Obama 38 (31)
Clinton 26 (35)
Edwards 20 (15)
Richardson 3 (5)

ARG claims that this reflected polling on the 4th and 5th. Today is the 5th. I have not heard of polling on Saturday mornings. That said, this is the bounce I expected. this would be Obama's best polling period. It will be interesting to see if Edwards goes up from here. Honestly, I do not see it at all. But I have been wrong before.

Bennett of ARG is predicting that 37% of the primary participants will be Independent. Obama wins them overwhelmingly. He splits Democrats with Hillary. This is where Hillary can do better imo. She needs to win Democrats convincingly. And she needs McCain to do better with Independents. McCain seems to be attracting much less of the Independent vote than Obama is. ARG has McCain in a big lead over Romney in NH based on a large lead among Republicans as well as Independents.

This is good news all around. Good for Hillary for rejecting the awful advice from the Mark Penn contingent in her camp and good for Democrats - no need to run down the likely nominee:

The Hillary campaign, which has promised a sharpening of "contrast" between her and Obama in the days ahead, appears to have concluded that they won't be running any ads against Obama in the run-up to the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday

Here is some news for Penn - that won't work in South Carolina either.

Hilary needs to run a campaign focused on her strengths playing to her partisan base (in itself an implict contrast to Obama) and let the chips fall where they may. Win or lose, be proud of your campaign. She is better than a cheap, tawdry Mark Penn led campaign.

New Hampshire's Secretary of State Richard Gardner is predicting a record turnout for Tuesday's New Hampshire primary.

Gardner estimates 500,000 — or 60 percent of the 830,684 registered voters — will cast ballots....The most votes cast in a presidential primary — 396,385 — were cast in 2000.

Here's the stats on registered voters as of Friday:

Of the 830,684 on the voter list, 373,397 or 45 percent are undeclared; 243,914 or 29 percent are Republican; and 213,373 or 26 percent are Democrats.

As betweens Dems and Republicans, factoring in the undeclared voters: [More...]

From primary and caucus coverage, I like reading local news sources. Here's a group of New Hampshire print media sites with an online presence (courtesy of the Free State Project):

• the Seacoast Media Group, which publishes The Exeter News-Letter, The Hampton Union, Herald Sunday, The Portsmouth Herald, The Dover Community News, The York Weekly, The York County Coast Star, and The Rockingham News.
• Berlin Reporter (NE. NH),
• the Carroll County Independent (N. NH),
• the Concord Monitor,
• Coos County Democrat (N. NH),
• Courier-Littleton (N. NH),
• Foster's Online,
• Granite State News (E. NH),
• the Meredith News (Central NH),
• Nashua Telegraph (Nashua & S. NH),
• Record Enterprise (Central NH),
• the Union Leader, and
• the Valley News (Upper Valley).

The Zogby Tracker:

Clinton 32 (32)
Obama 28 (26)
Edwards 20 (20)
Richardson 7 (7)

In essence, a little Iowa movement to Obama. But this is Zogby so I do not trust him. He is already predicting big Iowa bounce. I hate a pollster who predicts what his own poll will do the next day. For a more serious poll, here is the Suffolk Tracker:

Clinton 36 (37)
Obama 29 (25)
Edwards 13 (17)
Richardson 4 (4)

As you can see, this poll is showing Iowa bounce. But all the bad news is for Edwards. Hillary has not dropped significantly yet. Indeed, if Hillary can hang on like she did the first night, she has a better shot than I would have thought. She has the debate tonight, which could easily halt the Iowa bounce.

Let me say this, I am surprised the Iowa bounce is not bigger already. This race in New Hampshire may be more up in the air than I thought. In the GOP race, Romney has MOVED UP since Iowa. Huckabee is up a bit but not much and McCain seems stagnant.

Maybe New Hampshire is poised to confound CW on the Iowa bounce.

Update [2008-1-5 12:41:24 by Big Tent Democrat]: Rassmussen does a one day poll last night and reports the results. Obama by 10.