Shock! Surprise! Clinton and McCain Win in New Hampshire.

By now we've all seen the sound bite of Senator Hillary Clinton choking up as she explained why she was running for President: "I have so many opportunities from this country. I just don't want to see it fall backwards". Was it a genuine moment for the former First Lady, or was it calculated to show the voters that she didn't come from the Candidate Factory (which is not located in China, just so you know)?

Whatever it was, it must have worked because Clinton won the New Hampshire Democratic primary in a stunningly close fashion over Senator Barack Obama, who was ahead in all the polls prior to the voting. John Edwards, who's going to lose voters if he insists on keeping John Mellencamp's "This Is Our Country" (also known as the Chevy Trucks ad) as his theme song, finished a distant third.

How did Obama lose New Hampshire? He's been getting the rock star treatment ever since his win in Iowa, including the cover of Newsweek magazine. But this time more women came out for Clinton than for Obama. Was Oprah Winfrey busy this week?

Senator John McCain won the Republican primary, just like he did in 2000, over former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. Like Clinton, all the pundits counted McCain out after their relatively poor showings in Iowa. This time, McCain got more votes from independents than Obama did.

Romney's reason for losing might stem from New Hampshirites' familiarity with him in next-door Massachusetts--in this case, they've probably seen too much. Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, finished third. The other guys (Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, etc.)? They were nonfactors.

It was either Keith Olbermann or Chris Matthews on MSNBC who hit the nail on the head concerning the significance of the past week: For the first time, presidential candidates who happened to be African-American and a woman won a caucus and a primary, in that order.

Come to think of it, maybe Hillary Clinton was on to something.