Following both parties' debates in New Hampshire this week, the Mason-Dixon Poll shows Hillary and Mitt in the lead among likely primary voters in their respective parties, Mark Murray of NBC reports.

Read his entire post at the link. On the GOP side, the poll shows Romney leading McCain 27%-16%, followed by Giuliani at 15%. Fred Thompson gains 12% without declaring . . . this is big news for Romney. Up until now, given his standing in national GOP polls, he has been given little chance to win the nomination (except for Hugh Hewitt, who even wrote a book about it, and his blog partner Dean Barnett, a shameless Romney partisan from way back).

This week, though, saw putative frontrunners Giuliani and McCain withdrawing from the first real test, the Ames, Iowa straw poll in August. If Romney is scaring them off in Iowa, and beating them in New Hampshire, and Thompson is moving up fast in South Carolina without formally entering the race, just WHERE do the frontrunners begin to win? Of course, the truncated schedule, with huge amounts of delegates at stake on Feb. 5th, and Florida before that, the first three small states might not determine the outcome this time. But there's still tons of free media for the early winners, and the money to run a national campaign usually doesn't go to the losers of the early contests.

Among likely Democratic voters, the race is tightening: Hillary leads with 26% against Obama's 21 and Edwards' 18 (both within striking distance), while Richardson gains 9% and Biden commands 6% support, the rest being negligible. Hillary's strategy assumes a win in Iowa can cinch a NH win, too. Her fundraising for the 2nd quarter will beat the first, which was already a spectacular record.

As I have proposed previously, the multiple candidate field, with several drawing enough financial support to get through South Carolina at least, suits Hillary very well. No one shows enough strength to threaten her or to become the "not-Hillary" candidate, yet they suck up enough of the available cash and experienced staffers to keep a potentially strong opponent like Gore from jumping in late.

Edwards MUST win Iowa, and his problem will be money unless he shows he can compete with Clinton on the 2nd quarter FEC numbers. Obama likewise will be done if his 2nd quarter totals are down very much, but even if they are relatively strong it is difficult to envision a scenario with him winning enough early to stay competitive. Hillary Clinton is cruising to the Democratic nomination, IMO.