THE WRITE-IN WAR

Lost among the hoopla of Kerry's big win in New Hampshire was the big drama: How would Bush do as a write-in candidate on the Democratic ballot, compared to the Dems as write-in's on the Repub slate?

And now we know.

First, the Dem primary: Bush finished 9th, with 115 write-in votes, enough for 0.1%, though looking at the total amount of votes, I think they rather charitably rounded up.

But what about the Republican primary?

1. Bush - 53,749 - 85.4%
2. John Kerry (write-in) - 1,420 - 2.3%
3. Howard Dean (write-in) - 974 - 1.5%
4. Wesley Clark (write-in) - 851 - 1.4%
7. John Edwards (write-in) - 808 - 1.3%
10. Joe Lieberman (write-in) - 511 - 0.8%
20. Dennis Kucinich (write-in) - 28 - 0%
21. Carol Moseley Braun (write-in) - 15 - 0%
22. Dick Gephardt (write-in) - 14 - 0%
23. Al Sharpton (write-in) - 11 - 0%

That's 4,632 votes for Democratic candidates in the Republican primary, totaling 7.3% of the GOP primary vote.

That, ahem, far dwarfs Bush's meager total of 115 votes in the Dem primary. And the one where a significantly-larger total of people voted at that. And Kerry finished both 1st and 2nd!

Now if only Edwards or Clark could stand up to him next week...