I found this quote from an old profile of Barack Obama in the May 31, 2004, issue of The New Yorker:

Jan Schakowsky told me about a recent visit she had made to the White House with a congressional delegation. On her way out, she said, President Bush noticed her “obama” button. “He jumped back, almost literally,” she said. “And I knew what he was thinking. So I reassured him it was Obama, with a ‘b.’ And I explained who he was. The President said, ‘Well, I don’t know him.’ So I just said, ‘You will.’ ”

Sign of the future: the New Hampshire primary is unusual because it’s an open primary — independents can vote in it. But in exit polling, among registered Democrats, Clinton beat Obama 45% to 34% — better than her showing among independents who voted in the Democratic primary. This is to Hillary’s advantage as the race continues goes on to states that have closed primaries.

We went to the theater tonight. As soon as we got home at 10:15, I turned on the TV to see that Clinton was leading Obama. What the hell? Twenty minutes later, news organizations began projecting her as the winner.

Despite being undecided, my heart sank. Does this mean I support Obama after all? I don’t know. But all the commentary in the last few days predicting a long-awaited end to the Bush vs. Clinton culture wars made me happy and excited. I was ready to wipe the slate clean. An end to political conflict.

And then I foresee Clinton winding up the nominee, and we get the same old politics; if she somehow gets elected, we return to the old Machiavellian-Clintonian tactics of the 1990s. Is that good or bad? I don’t know. I’m so confused. I thought I liked the Clintonian tactics. But although I’m a huge fan of Bill Clinton, his little rant today about the Obama “fairy tale” pissed me off.

Anyway, what this means is that we’ve got a race after all. Which is probably a good thing. The longer we go without a candidate, the longer we go without giving the Republicans a clear target.

If there hadn’t been any polls, this wouldn’t be such a shock. It would just be a result. The New Hampshire outcome is still close — it appears to be Clinton 39% to Obama 36%. This means they each get 8 delegates in New Hampshire.

This is so incredibly exciting. I love it. Even if I don’t know who the hell I support.

In this great piece about Obama, Gary Kamiya (one of Salon’s best writers) captures much of what I’m feeling.

Those who support Obama argue that he will be able to work more effectively with Republicans and independents than his rivals. Those who support Clinton or Edwards argue that Obama is a political naif who will go down singing “Kumbaya” while being eaten alive by the right wing. His critics also claim that Obama is too inexperienced to be entrusted with the nation’s highest office, but that argument smacks of bogus “war-on-terror” fear-mongering — Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz, who helped bring us the Iraq war, had decades of experience. It’s a false argument in any case: Character and brains count more than decades of cutting deals and shoveling pork through Congress.

The truth is, it’s impossible to know whether Obama would be a more effective president than his opponents. The question of whether bipartisan gentleness is more effective than tough confrontation is meaningless, both because there’s no single answer to it and because we have no way of knowing how any of the Democrats will actually govern — for all we know, Obama may turn out to be a harder-edged negotiatior than Edwards. So it’s really about intangibles. In the end, it may come down to how one feels about the great divide that was so painfully revealed in the 2004 elections.

I would love to know what Bill Clinton’s thinking right now.

On the one hand, he supports his wife, the mother of his daughter, his life partner of almost 40 years. Like Bill, Hillary’s incredibly smart and a policy wonk, and she’d be able to restore the Clintons to the White House, which would only help burnish Bill’s legacy.

Bill has said a few times that he’d be campaigning for Hillary even if they weren’t married.

But you just know that’s a lie. Bill’s got to be looking at Obama right now — a young, fresh-faced, incredibly talented politician with terrific communication skills — with a mixture of admiration, envy, and recognition, and I’m sure there’s a part of himself that wants Obama to win. If he weren’t married to Hillary, he’d totally be supporting Obama. And if Obama gets the nomination, he will be — not just out of party loyalty but out of sheer joy.

Chris Bowers points out that even if Obama wins every primary before Super-Duper Tuesday on February 5th, Clinton could still have the most delegates and win the nomination:

Collectively, Clinton’s advantage in Super Delegates, Michigan, and February 5th home states provides her with roughly a 500 delegate advantage on Obama. If she were to also win Florida and California, which combine for 555 pledged delegates, it would be impossible for Obama to be ahead on delegates after February 5th. He could win every other state between now and February 6th, and never make up that sort of delegate deficit.

There are flaws in this analysis, as various commenters point out. But isn’t this fascinating? When was the last time the race was so fluid that people actually had to pay attention to delegate counts?

As for the Republican race – in which nobody seems to be a front-runner right now — I could see a scenario where February 5th doesn’t decide anything. If that happens, the last thing the Republicans would want is for a fight to break out at their nationally-televised convention in September, so there’d probably be some sort of brokered deal before then.

What a year.