Marathon Pundit: Hillary wins, Romney and McCain gain: UPDATED

On the Democratic side today, Hillary Clinton pulled out a win in the Nevada Caucuses.

I'm a tad surpised, and the reason is unions. Barack Obama did a lot of chest-pounding because of the endorsements he won from the Service Employees International Union and the Culinary Worker's Union.

As for the latter, the move by the Nevada Democratic Party to allow voting in casinos--so shift workers would participate, was viewed as a benefit for Obama--but Hillary Rodham Clinton won anyway, with 51 percent of the vote. Obama trailed with 45percent, and John Edwards--what happened to him?--won just four percent of caucus vote.

Lessons? Perhaps organized labor is not the reinvigorated force that some experts believe it is. Edwards chose former Michigan congressman David Bonoir to run his campaign, partly because of his long standing ties to unions. Last year it hired two former Howard Dean activists from the United Food & Commercial Workers-run Wal-Mart Watch to serve in senior campaign positions.

Obama got hit with bad news on the festering Tony Rezko front--read the below post about that development. It probably won't hurt him that much in Saturday's South Carolina Primary, but it could hurt him on Super Tuesday--not in Illinois of course.

As for the Republicans in the Silver State, Mitt Romney won 51 percent of the vote, no one else was close. But because of Nevada's high Mormon population, today's win will do as much as his win in Wyoming did--another state with a lot of Mormons. In short, not much.

South Carolina held its Republican Primary today, but the Democratic Party will take place next Saturday. What's with that?

McCain picked up a narrow but decisive win in the Palmetto State. The votes are still being counted, but Mike Huckabee will finish a few percentage points behind the Arizona senator, and Fred Thompson gets the bronze medal--but crossed the finish line far from the top two.

At this point, I think it's fair to say that John McCain is the GOP front-runner.
Which means, as the chant exclaimed it during his victory speech, "Mack is back." Romney is a close second, however.

But now that he is, as Theodore Roosevelt phrased it, "the man in the arena," look for the age issue to come up. It'll be interesting to see of Hillary's minions start the inevitible whispering campaign.

And finally, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) announced he is dropping out the presidential race today. He came across as a credible and decent man over the last few months of campaigning, but he just didn't click with voters. Let's hope he ends up in a cabinet position next January, such as Homeland Security or Defense.

UPDATE January 20: As far as McCain and the age issue, it's starting. Mike Huckabee supporter Chuck Norris brought it up today.

And wouldn't you know I found out about it on a liberal blog.

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