New Hampshire

The New Hampshire primary was yesterday and Romney won it, as I expected. Here are the results from Real Clear Politics. Romney won by a respectable margin at 39% with Ron Paul in second at 22.9%. I expect that Paul will get a consistent 20-25% for the rest of this campaign. John Huntsman is in third. I doubt anything will come of that. Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich are tied for fourth. I think Santorum and possibly Gingrich will do better in South Carolina, though Gingrich seems to be in the race more for revenge against Romney now. I expect that Romney will get the nomination in the end, especially of he does reasonably well in South Carolina.

Related articles

• New Hampshire Primary Election Results: GOP Candidates Deliver Speeches (VIDEO) (huffingtonpost.com)
• Mitt Romney wins New Hampshire, Ron Paul second (100gf.wordpress.com)
• New Hampshire primary winner: Mitt Romney (examiner.com)
• Republican Presidential Candidates Head To South Carolina On Heals Of New Hampshire Primary (newyork.cbslocal.com)
• Romney wins New Hampshire primary (macleans.ca)

Indiana # 3 Yea!

Indiana is the third freest state in the union according to this report from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. They rank the states in order and Indiana is number three, right behind New Hampshire and South Dakota. California, New Jersey and New York rank forty-eighth, forty-ninth, and fiftieth, which isn’t much of a surprise. Our neighbors Illinois and Ohio rank forty-one and forty-two, while Kentucky is thirty-two.

I’m not sure precisely what criteria they use. They have a report in pdf form to download and I think I will read it. It’s interesting to see how the fifty states rank relative to each other, but I think it might have been more useful if they had some sort of measure, maybe like Freedom House gives each nation a score from 1-7 on political rights and civil liberties