The New England granite industry seems like a relic of another era. A brochure from Halibut Point State Park in Rockport, Mass., informs the reader that "Today, a single granite quarry remains in operation on Cape Ann; several others are active across New England." Has the "first-in-the-nation" primary in the Granite State, New Hampshire, also outlived its era?

Every four years, the New Hampshire primary exercises a disproportionate influence on who becomes our chief executive. This tiny state, with a population of just over 1.3 million, a land area of under 9,000 square miles, and four electoral votes, can quickly create front-runners and doom candidates who fail to finish first.

Is there any way to counter the power of the Granite State? Or will the winners of the 2008 New Hampshire Democratic and Republican primaries use their sudden momentum to triumph elsewhere? This country needs a state to challenge the New Hampshire primacy. "Checks and balances" aren't just needed in our federal government; they would also prove useful in our presidential primary system.

Merci to my muse on this one...

A recent Rasmussen poll has Mitt Romney ahead in New Hampshire. Romney is receiving support from 26% of those polls and the trio of Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Fred Thompson receive about 17% each.

A couple of weeks ago, I noted that Romney is doing well in the early primary states. Momentum is a wonderful partner. As Romney wins, the money will flow in. Furthermore, it seems that the real loser will be Rudy. If he can't win in the east, it may effect his standings nationally.

Fred Thompson will do well in the South and Rudy may find himself riding the McCain Express down to the bottom of the pack. Romney may change his positions for the occasion but it is working. People like what he is saying ....now.

This could wind up being a race between Thompson and Romney.

The primary season has produced something of a mirror image. John Edwards on one side, Mitt Romney on the other. While both men trail at least two other candidates in national polls, each shows strong support in Iowa. Likewise, Edwards and Romney are increasingly focusing on New Hampshire in a bid to dole out a one-two punch to their rivals. The strategy is to snatch all the publicity from two early wins and translate it into an unstoppable momentum. Hey, stranger things have happened.

So what about a head-to-head match up between these two dashing gents? Well, according to Gallup, it's not even close. In fact, if you believe in this sort of speculation, Edwards would trounce Romney 61% to 32%, a higher margin of victory than either Obama, who was second, or Clinton. But then, once again, all Democrats beat all Republicans (though Thompson wasn't included in this survey).

The electability question factors large in a new article about Edwards, which highlights not only on the Iowa/New Hampshire game plan, but the former North Carolina Senator's belief that he can compete in the reddest of Southern states:

As much as he declares himself the antidote to George W. Bush, it's what he shares with the Texan--known for whacking brush in Crawford and using Lone Star State grammar instead of what he learned at Andover and Yale--that could be his best hope for winning: Southern authenticity.

Moreover, it is his attention to rural matters that makes Edwards popular with audiences in the little towns all across the country. Romney? Well, he has a varmint gun.

The problem with a debate of this size is that you just don't get to hear as many answers as you'd like from the candidates you want to hear from. That said, here are tonight's winners and losers, in my most humble of opinions:

Winners:

Rudy Giuliani: Giuliani was forceful with his points and seems to be getting more comfortable. He walked the stage and looked like an attorney in a courtroom; confident, sure of his answers and convincing. He didn't get tripped up on the social issues and was on his game. He solidified his place as a front-runner by sounding conservative on national defense and taxation.

Duncan Hunter: Duncan Hunter suffers from the incurable disease of having zero charisma. He's a great candidate and knows policy better than anyone. He would make an excellent president. He was on in his answers and knows the immigration issue well because his district (my former home) in San Diego County is literally miles from the border. He also has a son serving in Afghanistan and who also served in Iraq, the war is real to him and he speaks with authority. That said, he still is a third-tier candidate because he is just not making a splash with the American people. He'd be an excellent Vice President. The international press and the New York Times will most-likely go ballistic that Hunter said he'd nuke Iran to prevent their having nukes themselves.

Losers:

John McCain: McCain had to be stellar today when discussing the immigration bill. He had to convince conservatives that this was a good bill. He failed miserably. As the old saying goes; you can put a dress and lipstick on a pig and it's still a pig. That's how it is with the immigration bill. McCain had but one issue to hammer home and he just couldn't do it. Besides that, the whole "my friends" thing is a bit irksome after the fiftieth time.

A few observations from the second Dem debate.

-Unlike Ron Paul, Democratic spoiler Mike Gravel could not keep up the entertaining hijinks from the first debate and looked rather bumbling all around.

-At times it felt as if John Edwards and Barack Obama were having a private conversation.

-Hillary Clinton continues to show that she's a polished candidate. She has an alert, articulate presence, and doesn't wither from attacks (be they from Dennis Kucinich or Edwards).

-If you assumed that each of the moderators' microphones would have been tested before the debate started, you would be wrong.

-Obama is damn good at thinking on his feet, and, of the big three, seemed to answer each question the most directly.

-Bill Richardson did well in stressing his experience, but tends to bite off more than he can chew. Why is Bill Clinton angry at him, and why do we keep worrying about what job the former president will be given?

-Whose bright idea was it to get rid of the podiums and tell them to sit down? And where's Oprah? Somehow I think she'd be better at this format than moderator Wolf Blitzer.

-Thanks to the Fox News Republican debate, it seems that idiotic hypothetical questions will now be a staple of all future debates.

-Joe Biden (whose delivery was, at times, the most impassioned) and Chris Dodd did pretty well but have no chance whatsoever.

-Kucinich and Gravel did poorly and have no chance whatsoever.

Bottom line. A fairly substantive, if not boring, debate.

According to a poll from American Research Group. He's up by 7 in Iowa, 5 in New Hampshire and by a whopping 13 in South Carolina. Ryan Sager comments in NYSunPolitics.com:

I still believe the February 5, 2008, big-state Super Duper Tuesday primary is going to render the early three primaries irrelevant. Well, with this caveat, applicable to both parties' primaries. If one candidate wins all three, the big states' results will probably reflect that - though, it's by no means a certainty, if there's a big gap between the national polls and the early state results.

But if the early states split between two or three candidates, the national results will control.

So, while a Hillary Clinton or Rudy Giuliani can lose one or two of the big three, a John McCain or John Edwards has to pull off a hat trick. Thus, Mr. McCain's got to hope those ARG numbers are on the mark.

In other words, a front-runner can lose one or two of the big early races. But a non-front runner can't afford to lose a single trick. Implicitly, Sager has classified John McCain as a second tier candidate, behind Rudy Giuliani and potentially behind Fred Thompson.

Welcome to the second tier John McCain! Please make yourself comfortable and sit yourself right next to Mitt there.