Aside from the continued and fast paced day-to-day grind and message wars, a few key facts control the respective Presidential nomination races:

1) No Republican currently has critical mass

More specifically, no Republican has accumulated a recognizable core of support that can carry him to the nomination. Results of the first two states amplify this point:

Iowa

Entrance polls showed Mike Huckabee crushing Mitt Romney among Evangelicals (46% - 19%) but having been beaten badly among other Republican caucus-goers (33% - 14%). More importantly, Evangelical turnout was very high, as detailed by Patrick Ruffini. Consequently, even though Romney's campaign met its vote targets, it was overwhelmed by the over 50% increase in Evangelical turnout (it rose from 37% of Republican caucus-goers in 2000 to 60% in 2008). Jim Geraghty essentially confirmed Ruffini's thesis with the Romney campaign.

All that serves to confirm Mike Huckabee is indeed the candidate of Evangelicals. More cynically, "'Huckabee's principle voting block was female born-again Christian Republicans living in non-urban rural areas with a population below 10,000.'" That overstates things a bit, but it underscores the point Huckabee has yet to demonstrate broad electoral appeal, even among Republican voters.

New Hampshire

If Mike Huckabee is the candidate of Evangelicals, John McCain is the candidate of moderates. He fought to a statistical draw with Mitt Romney among ID'd Republicans in yesterday's primary (CNN's exit poll had Romney slightly ahead, Fox's had McCain). McCain's margin of victory came from his overwhelming support among ID'd independents. More clearly, Romney won comfortably among conservatives (38% - 30%) while McCain cleaned up with moderates (44% - 27%) and liberals (45% - 15%) voting in the GOP primary. Similarly, McCain's near 3rd place showing in Iowa was the result of him tying Mitt Romney among "Moderate" caucus-goers, while losing badly to Huckabee, Romney, and Fred Thompson among conservatives.

Thus, while Huckabee and McCain have important victories under their belts, their path to support among the bulk of Republican primary voters isn't entirely clear. The decisive group each relied on for their success thus far is not adequate to win the nomination without broader support. Evangelicals are an important component of the Republican base, but getting blown out among non-Evangelicals isn't a winning strategy (let alone the fact Iowa's Evangelical community may be a bit unique). Likewise, living off the support of moderates didn't work for McCain in 2000. Why should it win him the nomination now?

The first candidate between Huckabee and McCain to find a way to actually appeal to a broad swath of conservatives has the best chance to emerge as the front-runner, barring a Romney comeback.

2) Michigan is scrambled, just like the Republican race

The media narrative in Michigan is going include a heavy focus on Romney v. McCain, but Huckabee actually has an interesting chance to do well also. His poll position is actually pretty strong. His new ad in the state is a pitch perfect match given his candidacy to date:

And he is uniquely positioned to siphon votes from both Romney and McCain. His firm Evangelical base eats into Romney's social conservative support while his economic populism is likely to attract non-conservatives who might otherwise gravitate to McCain. Given that Michigan is an open primary, without a functional Democratic contest, the battle next Tuesday looks wide open.

For that matter the overall Republican race is equally in flux. I subscribe to Stanley Kurtz's "no Mentum" analysis, primarily because current positive media for McCain aside, no candidate is poised to consolidate a necessary share of the Republican base. We'll see if anyone can build momentum in Michigan and then Nevada/South Carolina to create a "rally around the winner" effect, if nothing else.

3) Media coverage and expectations matter

Exhibit 1: The New Hampshire media's love affair with John McCain is almost as bizarre as his connection with moderates and liberals in the Granite State. But it has meaning. Favorable coverage in the closing weeks of the campaign, with a high profile, anti-Romney twist from some editorial boards, did wonders for John McCain's approval ratings. His own campaign's heavy focus on the state obviously helped, but a serious assist from the media is required whenever a controversial candidate achieves a 75% approval rating among primary voters, like what the CNN exits showed (the final University of New Hampshire poll [pdf] showed an even higher fav/unfav of 81% - 13% for McCain).

Exhibit 2: Mitt Romney is the only candidate who has demonstrated the ability to win large percentages of the conservative vote in two very different, high profile, Republican contests - plus a little noticed win among GOP activists in Wyoming. But it doesn't matter. Events during the latter half of 2007 enshrined expectations of wins in Iowa and New Hampshire. The fact he is the candidate who consistently won conservative support in both Iowa's GOP caucuses and New Hampshire's open primary is now immaterial. Expectations weren't met, his campaign is now feeling the heat in the media, and thus Michigan is a virtual must win. Ironically, the candidate running as the consensus conservative choice may be functionally knocked out of the race by non-conservative voters in New Hampshire and Michigan.

Lesson: as much as conservatives distrust the 4th Estate, conservative candidates still have to do whatever they can to effectively manage media coverage of their campaigns.

4) McCain has a ray of hope with conservatives

If McCain campaigns with a focus on areas of agreement with conservatives, like he did on this call with bloggers, he has a punchers chance, especially if the race eventually narrows to him against Huckabee (in which case my money is on McCain). If, however, his surrogates do dumb things like bragging about his stands on global warming and campaign finance reform or if he reverts back to his habit to picking gratuitous fights with other Republicans and their allies then he won't get so far.

As Rush Limbaugh said today, "'The Republican Nominee Might Wind up Being the Guy That Republicans Dislike the Least.'" True, no matter how troubling that may be.

5) Race isn't a factor in the Democratic contest

Eli Sanders is talking about the possibility, first foisted on TV last night by NBC's Chuck Todd, that race played a key role in the big difference between Obama's standing in the polls and Clinton's actual victory.

As much as some members of the press corps are always on the watch for closet racists, the data doesn't actually support that lurid theory.

Jay Cost did the clearest job of explaining what really happened, digging into the exit polls, to discover Clinton simply turned out her base better. Since the Clinton v. Obama rivalry began to shape up in early 2007, it has generally divided down traditional, intra-party Democratic lines - which can be oversimplified down into beer drinkers v. wine drinkers. Clinton's social welfare heavy agenda appeals to blue collar, lower-income, working families. Obama's soaring rhetoric appeals to idealistic young people and affluent liberals.

Cost summarizes how Clinton beat Obama decisively among women, older voters, those with a high school education or less, and with incomes under $50,000. And her campaign got those voters to the polls. A fact confirmed via different analysis from New Hampshire journalist Drew Cline: Obama won the liberal havens, Clinton won the working class, old-school Democratic communities.

Partick Ruffini mentioned one big reason why: Michael Whouley. He was a legendary name in Democratic political circles even before 2004, when John Kerry secured his services to run Kerry's Iowa caucus operations (after which the rest is history). Whouley is to Democratic turnout what the RNC's 2004 operation was to Republicans: unparalleled. Marc Ambinder noted that Whouley ok'd Clinton's New Hampshire operation, but wasn't asked to assist in Iowa.

Obama's own operation in Iowa was very good at getting newer, younger caucus-goers into the mix. Not so much in New Hampshire. For example, in Iowa, voters under 40 constituted 40% of Democratic caucus attendees. In New Hampshire, only 33% of Democratic primary voters were under 40. In Iowa, 57% of Democrats were first-time caucus goers. In New Hampshire, only 19% of Democratic primary voters were new.

Momentum is great. But in a tight race down to the wire, organization can put a campaign over the top, everything else being about equal. That's why Clinton won. She may have even received an assist from some independents bailing out of voting in the expected Obama landslide to cast what they thought was a more meaningful vote for John McCain, though that theory is exceedingly difficult to prove. Either way, it seems prudent to avoid fantastic theories that Northeastern Democratic primary voters in the modern era are were voting with racist undertones.

UPDATE: typo fixed.