Six Tickets Out of New Hampshire

This week, no one is asking whether Iowa matters. It's clear the small state at the center of the country has had as much influence on the opening of the 2008 presidential race as ever — perhaps more than ever.

What's less clear is whether New Hampshire can fulfill its traditional role of narrowing the field and defining the batting order. In one party, maybe. In the other, no way.

For once, the chaos is not on the Democratic side. There, the race is about to shrink to two, for all intents and purposes. Whatever happens in the first primary voting Tuesday, Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will go on to compete in other states this month and next.

The rest of the field will not keep pace, and the only question left to answer is how soon Sens. Joe Biden and Chris Dodd will be joined on the sideline by John Edwards, Bill Richardson and the others.

If she loses New Hampshire as expected, Clinton may be competitive in Michigan and Nevada, but she will have a hard time taking the more significant prize of South Carolina. That will make a comeback in Florida on Jan. 29 a towering challenge.

Far better for Clinton would be a miracle recovery in New Hampshire, making her The Comeback Kid Two, reprising her husband's triumph of spin in 1992. But even then she will likely have to battle Obama for the same handful of states before the 20-plus Tsunami Tuesday on Feb. 5.

Still, the demotion of Edwards and Richardson will simplify things for the Democrats in short order.

No such tidy projection can be made about the Republicans, who are deep in a state of disarray almost unprecedented in living memory.

After New Hampshire votes, at least six Republicans are likely to remain active, and it is possible to imagine any one of four getting the GOP nomination. Taking them in alphabetical order, they are Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, John McCain and Mitt Romney.

But which is most likely? That question may not be answered until all the votes are counted in the 20-plus states voting Feb. 5, if then. The prospect of a protracted nomination fight stretching through the Mid-Atlantic states and into the Midwestern states in mid-February is suddenly quite real. And that could mean the nomination will still be uncertain when Texas and Ohio vote on March 4.

There is a scenario by which no Republican has a preponderance of delegates even after March 4. That would leave Pennsylvania in a commanding position on April 22, and if that firewall too should fail, the Republicans could go to the Twin Cities with a couple of contenders still in the running.

The GOP has not really determined its nominee at a convention since 1952, and neither party has had a truly unstructured and unpredictable convention since 1968. Eliminating all suspense has become practically the central purpose of these non-events.

And yet the survival of four real prospects beyond the welter of contests on Feb. 5 makes anything possible. And the failure of New Hampshire to fulfill its winnowing function stands as a major culprit.

McCain is likeliest to win there, and he is the most plausible beneficiary if the party's cooler heads insist on reaching a compromise nominee. But he may not win another January contest, being in trouble again in South Carolina and less than beloved in Florida. His best shot is Michigan, where he won in 2000. But then he was not running against Romney, son of the state's popular former Republican governor, George Romney.

McCain could end the month having wowed the world in New Hampshire and nowhere else.

Romney will suffer grievous harm as his Iowa-New Hampshire strategy is shot to bits. Losing the latter test is especially galling in the state next door to Massachusetts, where he was governor. A few months ago, losing this brace of kingmaker events would have seemed unsurvivable for Romney. But he may not quit.

Romney has the great advantage of self-financing, and he should be strongest in the Western test in Nevada (he's already won a minor event in Wyoming). If he can add Michigan and compete in the other January states, he might be around into spring.

Romney might also keep churning his legs because the rivals who ought to be lapping him are mired in travails of their own.

One of these would be Giuliani. Embarrassing as it must be to lose badly in the earliest tests, Giuliani has always based his bid on winning big on Feb. 5. When Florida leapfrogged into January, it provided Giuliani his one chance for a win any earlier.

So if McCain, Romney and Huckabee divide the glory of all the other January events, there's no consensus front-runner to muscle Giuliani aside on Feb. 5.

At the same time, Giuliani could be frustrated by a loss in Florida to one of these three — perhaps Huckabee. The Arkansas preacher can stay alive with a win in South Carolina on Jan. 19. If he somehow finds the funding to last into February, he remains at least a theoretical threat to go all the way.