Romney Scores Win in New Hampshire

The results of the New Hampshire primary are in and the chameleon, Mitt Romney (pictured above with his beautiful sons) was the winner with 39.2% of the vote followed by Ron Paul at 22.9% and Jon Huntsman at 16.8%. Happily, Rick Perry got less than one percent of the vote and Gingrich and Santorum each received under 10%. One can only hope that Perry will pitch his tent and head back to Texas where is sort of idiocy and bigotry are still considered statesman like. As for Gingrich, one can dream that he'd pack up and leave the campaign trail as well, but i suspect his super over inflated ego will not allow for that - at least not yet. Here are highlights from Politico:

Mitt Romney claimed a decisive and widely expected victory in Tuesday night’s New Hampshire presidential primary, easily outdistancing runner-up Ron Paul and leaving his conservative challengers trailing far at the back of the pack.

The former Massachusetts governor is the first-ever Republican who is not an incumbent president to win both Iowa and New Hampshire, and Romney supporters hope his easy finish here will send a signal to the party that it’s time to start uniting behind him.

But even as Romney basked in his win — he addressed a crowd of elated supporters less than half an hour after the polls closed — his rivals signaled that they are now girding for a savage fight in South Carolina’s Jan. 21 primary.

With 69 percent of precincts reporting, Romney was drawing 38 percent of the vote to Paul’s 24 percent. In third place was Jon Huntsman, with 17 percent, followed by Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, both with approximately 10 percent.

Rick Perry, the Texas governor who has largely avoided campaigning in New Hampshire, had less than 1 percent of the vote.

And by finishing third — even 20 points behind Romney — Huntsman gains just enough credibility as a national candidate to press his effort forward in South Carolina. In his election-night remarks, Huntsman urged his supporters to look to the next election later this month. “Ladies and gentlemen, I think we’re in the hunt,” he said. “Third place is a ticket to ride, ladies and gentlemen. Hello, South Carolina!”

Huntsman, whose anti-war views have earned him applause from young voters as well as moderate-leaning elites, declared in his speech: “Afghanistan is not this nation’s future, and Iraq is not this nation’s future.”

Meanwhile, the candidates who have seemed most menacing to Romney — Santorum, Gingrich and Perry — fell short even of their limited expectations in New Hampshire. Gingrich, who had earned the endorsement of New Hampshire’s powerful Union Leader newspaper, and Santorum, who rolled into the state after an encouraging near-win in Iowa, must now go into South Carolina with no particularly imposing momentum behind them.

I listened to Jon Huntsman speech and candidly, if the GOP had any sense, Huntsman ought to be the nominee. Of course, I'm not a Bible beater or GOP party hack, so my opinions surely carry no weight in those circles.