…super wrong.

On the Dem side, I’ll take comfort in numbers and having been wrong along with everyone else. It seems like all of this even took the Hillary folks by surprise. I haven’t heard a satisfactory explanation for what happened yet. So…

The Republicans

I got the order roughly right here (Rudy did finally nudge by Paul — woo-hoo!). But the magnitude wrong. A McCain blowout.

I do enjoy watching Mitt Romney fade from the stage — repugnant, principle-less little toad that he is. But I’m not about to climb aboard the McCain-is-the-frontrunner bandwagon. The press may want to crown him, but the base is going to have other ideas nationwide. Frankly, I give the once-implausible-seeming Huck a better chance at the nomination than McCain. Rudy still has a shot, I think, but will need to reboot his campaign and make a big splash between now and Florida. The question is when do Romney and Fred drop out. Thompson has zero justification for remaining in at this point; Romney has cash and a chance in Michigan, but should likewise step aside.

Let the chips fall where they may, I say at this point. I sort of have no dog and three dogs in this primary. A Huckabee win would prove every warning I gave in my book prescient. A Giuliani win, I think, would still be best for moving the party past the Bush era. A McCain win might be the best thing to keep the existing coalition together and put off tough decisions to another year (though, God help us as to what sorts of judges we would get out of McCain paired with a Democratic Senate, should he win the general).

At least one prediction from way back has come true: With open primaries on both sides, this is the most chaotic, exciting election imaginable. It also makes me reel just trying to game out the thousands of plausible scenarios moving forward.