My guess.... er, carefully considered analysis, is that the order of finish will be:

Kerry / Dean / Edwards / Clark / Lieberman

Close, but no cigar, unless they count the last 3% of precincts and the absentee ballots and Clarks' current 705 vote advantage disappears.

[...]

• I predict that Lieberman's showing will be quite bad (under 10%) and he will drop out shortly afterwards. I nailed the first part, but, unfortunately for us all, Lieberman has refused to quit the race. Score me 1 for 2.



• Kerry will lead Dean by more than 10 points, but Dean's showing will be credible enough to keep him moving ahead, and possibly strong enough to start the media talkng about a "comeback" (although he probably won't be dubbed the "Comeback Kid"). Hard to know how to score this. Kerry's lead was more than 10, that one's clear; whether Dean's showing is "credible" depends on who's doing the spinning; that he's "moving ahead" is undeniable; no one is talking about a Dean comeback (though Kerry has dubbed himself the "comeback Kerry") I'll score this as 4 predictions, of which I'll credit myself with 2 right, and 1 undecided. Total so far: 3 for 6, 1 pending



• The media will consider Edward's results to be "good" and Clark's to be "disappointing", but both will continue in the race. 2 for 2 on this, despite the fact that their vote tallies are, for all intents and purposes, indistingishable. That's the funof the "expectations" game, which almost as jolly as the "momentum" game. Total: 5 for 8, 1 pending



• Immediately after NH Kerry will start having problems again as he lapses into complacency (as per Josh Marshall's comments the other day) and starts getting attacked by the media again, being the frontrunner. Too soon to know about Kerry's problems and complacency, but I think we can take it as read that since he's now officially the frontrunner, the media will start attacking him again, just as they attack all frontrunners, with the exception of conservative Republican frontrunners. Total me up as 6 for 9, 2 pending



• Like death, taxes and Dennis Miller, Sharpton will be impossible to get rid of, even though his results will be microscopic. This was a joke, not unlike Sharpton.



• And Kucinich.... is he really still running? Another joke, since he's walking, not running. (Alright, he's crawling.)

And that's the name of that tune. I also resolutely predict that my average this time will be better than 25% -- unless you count that as one of my predictions. It turns out that my average was better this time, 66% instead of Iowa's 33%, for an overall prognostication score of 70%, with several items still awaiting further data.