by Art Kelly

1.  Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, and Jon Huntsman won first, second, and third, while Newt Gingrich barely edged out Rick Santorum for fourth place, in the New Hampshire Primary.

Wikipedia listed the complete results from all 301 precincts:

97,531 (39.25%) Mitt Romney
56,849 (22.88%) Ron Paul
41,948 (16.88%) Jon Huntsman
23,409 (  9.42%) Newt Gingrich
23,360 (  9.40%) Rick Santorum
  1,767 (  0.71%) Rick Perry
     944 (  0.38%) Buddy Roemer
     352 (  0.14%) Michele Bachmann
     182 (  0.07%) Gary Johnson
     162 (  0.07%) Herman Cain
  1,993 (  0.80%) All Others

Romney won 7 delegates, Paul 3, and Huntsman 2.

A total of 248,497 voted in the New Hampshire Republican Primary this year, an increase of 13,646 over the 234,851 who voted in the GOP Primary in 2008.

A separate article in Wikipedia provided the results from the 2008 primary.  The results from that year were:

88,571 (37.71%) John McCain
75,546 (32.17%) Mitt Romney
26,859 (11.44%) Mike Huckabee
20,439 (  8.70%) Rudy Giuliani
18,308 (  7.80%) Ron Paul
  2,890 (  1.23%) Fred Thompson
  1,217 (  0.52%) Duncan Hunter
     203 (  0.09%) Alan Keyes
     818 (  0.35%) All Others

In 2008, McCain won 7 delegates, Romney 4, and Huckabee 1.

The only candidates who ran in both 2008 and 2012 were Romney and Paul. 

Romney won 21,985 more votes this year and increased his percent of the vote by 7.08%.  Paul won 38,541 more votes this year and increased his percent of the vote by 15.08%.

2.  Ron Paul may have benefited from a strong performance in the debates shortly before the New Hampshire voting, and Newt Gingrich may have been hurt by a confrontation with Paul in one of the debates.

The International Business Times recounted:

Paul was criticizing so-called "chickenhawks," or politicians who are hawkish about going to war but personally shirked the opportunity to serve in the U.S. military.

"I think people who don't serve when they could and they get three or four or even five deferments have no right to send our kids off to war," said Paul in a clear reference to Gingrich.

Gingrich responded: "I was married with a child."

To which Paul famously shot back: "When I was drafted, I was married and had two kids, and I went."

Paul finished his sentence with pursed lips and a steely gaze. The crowd was silent for a moment. Then, it broke out in applause.

The emotional impact of that moment may very well have produced many additional votes for Paul and seriously damaged Gingrich, who finished near the bottom in the primary.

3.  ConservativeHQ.com's Jeffrey Rendall reviewed both of the back-to-back televised debates that were held on Saturday night and on Sunday morning just before the primary in New Hampshire. 

His analyses help explain the primary results in which Mitt Romney and Ron Paul together captured over 62% of the vote.

4.  The first post-New Hampshire poll in South Carolina for their January 21 primary, conducted on January 11 for the Augusta Chronicle and the Savannah Morning News by Insider Advantage/Majority Opinion Research. 

The results are:

23.1% Mitt Romney
21.3% Newt Gingrich
13.5% Rick Santorum
13.3% Ron Paul
  6.7% Jon Huntsman
  5.2% Rick Perry
  1.2% Others
15.2% Undecided

5.  The next debates will be:

Saturday, January 14, at 8 PM Eastern time on the Fox News Channel;
Monday, January 16, at 9 PM Eastern time on the Fox News Channel; and
Thursday, January 19, on CNN, but the time has not yet been determined.

6.  Mark Skousen, the producer of FreedomFest, the prominent libertarian conference held each year in Las Vegas, has inaugurated the first annual Global Financial Summit, which will be held February 1-2 in Nassau, the Bahamas.

For free-market CEOs, business leaders, economists, and investors, the Global Financial Summit will discuss free market solutions to the problems of inflation, economic crisis, unemployment, recession, and depression.

The website for the Global Financial Summit is at http://freedomfest.com/gfs2012/

Click here for What's Happening with Seniors Benefits

Previous issues of both newsletters

Follow Art Kelly on Twitter @ArthurKellyJr

Follow Richard Viguerie on Twitter @RichardViguerie