This expect I did not. It is, nonetheless, a wonderful thing to see, an example of why politics is sports for nerds.

Biggest Winners: Iowa and New Hampshire, whose proper role is not to pick winners, but to lance egos. Whoever wins, no one can say Iowa and NH didn't do their best to make them work for it.

Biggest Loser: The press, who are only just now learning that Barack Hope Obama is not going to be raptured straight into the Oval Office.

Didn't win big, but you'll be told they did: NH puckers up for McCain one more time, but his victory there is like winning an all-expenses paid four-day, three-night trip--to Hartford. There isn't a single core Republican issue on which McCain has not pissed on the base, and the next batch of primaries don't allow open independent voting. His best hope may be to tell primary voters in South Carolina and Michigan that his support among NH independents proves he's the man to beat Hillary or Obama.

Didn't lose big, but you'll be told they did: Romney's campaign needs rebooting, but neither McCain nor Huckabee have a clear strategy to win. Immigration came within a hair of costing someone named Tsongas an election in Lowell a few months ago, which is like a Kennedy getting beaten in Hyannis. Immigration is the Democrats' greatest weakness, and Romney's strongest compared to McCain, Giuliani, and Huck, all of whom are squishes at best. This will be a much bigger issue south of Manch Vegas.

Lost, and everyone knows it: Thompson, whose dismal showing forces him to explain why he's not a vanity candidate. Edwards, less so, but still, because there's precisely zero chance of him squeezing past Obama's charisma and Hillary's ego.

Won, but you won't hear it elsewhere: Giuliani, who benefits greatly from a presumed matchup against Hillary, and needs a weak and divided GOP field in order to prevent a fatal collapse of support in Florida, on which all his hopes now rest.