Sports radio guy and notorious pants salesman DAMON AMENDOLARA breaks it down: RICK PERRY is the Houston Texans: meaning he has no chance. NEWT GINGRICH? The Baltimore Ravens: a long shot to win, has a shaky reputation, known for making bad decisions in the past. Broncos? That would be the Tebow-ish RICK SANTORUM: preachy, really conservative, and we're all ready for his exit.

It's a good night for Mitt Romney. He won solidly (though not overwhelmingly), while Ron Paul appears to have exceeded my expectations -- which is fine with Romney, because it means candidates he might actually fear took third or worse.

It certainly seems that Romney must now feel awfully confident about winning the nomination.

There is nothing quite like the joy of a convert to the cause of VERMIN SUPREME, the grandaddy of protest candidates who has been occupying the New Hampshire primaries -- and rattling cages of all kinds -- for decades. When you come across a Troll-in-Chief with such a finely-tuned campaign platform and stump speech -- ponies for everyone, and fascism in the name of dental hygeine -- you wonder how you haven't ever heard of him before.

Everyone's favorite Sunday-morning NBC debate zinger got its own website -- albeit a Z-grade, 12-year-old-with-a-geocities-account type website. But there's plenty to love about StopRomeysPiousBaloney.com -- for one thing, the Baloney-meter. For another, idiot-proof social-media buttons to share on Facebook and Twitter.

This weekend, while the entire Granite State was gripped with #FITN fever, our operatives leapt into the fray -- even infiltrating the Newt Gingrich phone bank -- to bring you only the finest in Robitussin-splashed gonzo campaign-trail journalism. No Vermin Supreme antic has gone unnoticed, no Santorum joke unmade.

A couple of weeks ago I asked readers to send in their best Newt Gingrich-style answer to the journalistic question: "We must stop Christmas from coming -- but how?"

The following have been chosen as our three finalists. Please enjoy them, and comment about which you think should win, and why!

Thanks to all who entered -- and to Newt himself, without whom none of this would have been possible, or nearly as much fun.

The best way to comprehend the nuts and bolts of the American political machine is to work for it. And so I did. For Newt Gingrich.

Situated in downtown Manch next to a cigar shop, the office broadcasts the message that Newt wants you to know that the good people of New Hampshire like him. Really like him.

About half our crew is still staggering around New Hampshire with those maniacs from the GOP, who continue to embarass themselves and their party. That goes double for the frontrunner, our old friend Mittens, who will probably lock up the nomination tomorrow -- much to the delight of progressives, whose job is right now being done for them by Newt Gingrich and his merry band of political suicide bombers.

Mitt Romney at the Pinkerton School, NH. Saturday, January 7, 2012. Photo (c) Jeremiah Robinson for the Boston Phoenix.

Just before the 2004 New Hampshire Democratic primary, I was on Greater Boston along with the late, great David Nyhan. We were both asked to predict the outcome. Polls had shown that to that point, Howard Dean's loss in Iowa, his "scream" moment, and his staff shake-up had taken a steep and continuing toll, not only far behind John Kerry but in danger of being surpassed by Wes Clark, John Edwards, and perhaps even "Joementum" Lieberman.

Sometimes the only way to really dive into an early morning presidential debate is with a little cough syrup. Or actually a lot of cough syrup. And so I swallowed a gallon and went to check the happenings in Concord. This is not a metaphor.

The Occupy posse was there. In full effect. And so were Ron Paul's homeys.

Enough with all the bullshit about how much New Hampshire residents know about politics. And about how everyone who lives here has had numerous dinner dates with each of the candidates, in which they've discussed Iranian nuclear proliferation over porterhouses. It's nonsense, and if you don't believe me, then ask any average “undecided” voter what they think of Rick Santorum's foreign policy, or Ron Paul's vintage collection of Nike Airs.

Dispatch from Boston Phoenix New Hampshire correspondent Dan McCarthy:

MANCHESTER – Rick Santorum wants to be like Ronald Reagan in the 1980 campaign New Hampshire Primary. He wants to compare his plight here against Mitt Romney to how the Gipper came around and whooped George H. W. Bush, who eventually conceded and accepted the VP nod.

Oh, Rick Santorum. We're so going to enjoy your all-too-brief sojourn as a serious presidential candidate.

RICK SANTORUM: I DIDN'T SAY BLACK PEOPLE, I SAID BLAH PEOPLE. Did Santorum really equate black folks with welfare recipients? No, no no no. You must have misunderstood. Rick Santorum would never do that. Certainly not in front of a bunch of cameras during a town hall full of white folks in Iowa, a state where less than 10 percent of welfare recipients are black.

After the unimpressive Mitt Romney event I described in Part 1 of this saga, I hightailed it north to Laconia, where Newt Gingrich had his first post-Iowa Town Hall. Gingrich, if you aren't aware, has refashioned his campaign into a cannonball aimed at Romney and Ron Paul, who he blames for attack ads that have sunk his candidacy -- and, worse, seriously damaged his brand value in the conservative marketplace.

In the Granite State the day after the Iowa caucuses, it was a little tough to spot the energy that campaigns typically try to project in the final week before the New Hampshire primary, – nothing like the bounce-in-his-step John Kerry victory lap of 2004, or the McCain "Straight Talk" surge of 2000, and certainly not the wild enthusiasms of the 2008 Obama-Clinton showdown.

OK, first off, if I had to guess I would have Romney to win the Iowa caucuses tonight. From there I don't know.

As far as I'm concerned, the state of the race is that Mitt Romney can only be beaten if conservatives really rally around Rick Perry. That has not happened yet, which really helps Romney's chances. However, it could still happen in South Carolina.