The morning after the two big comebacks

To help make sense of the very dramatic results last night I recommend Dan Balz's piece in the Washington Post this morning, and a thoughtful essay from Josh Marshall.

Some early morning thoughts:

- The Democratic polls weren't wrong. I hear that both the Clinton and Obama campaigns final Monday tracks had Obama up more than 10. It is clear there was a big Obama surge and then a final 24-48 hour Clinton counter-surge. (I think the Clinton campaign was as surpised as the rest of us last night.) Regardless, it is one of the most remarkable and compelling election wins we've seen in quite some time. The Clinton magic is still alive and well. As I said on a conference call yesterday afternoon, if anyone could figure out how to get out of the jam Hillary found herself in this week it was the Clintons.

- Strong and enthusiastic support from women were critical for Hillary last night. It is important to remember that she is now the first woman to ever win a major party primary.

- On the Democratic side the candidates now go on to Nevada, bringing the West, the Southwest, Hispanics and immigration into the debate. We will be releasing some background materials on the new Nevada dynamic later today. Then they move on to South Carolina. The addition of these states by the DNC this year is bringing these two new regions - the South and the Southwest - and two important groups of voters - African-Americans and Hispanics - long neglected into the early primary process. It is the beginning of the nationalization of the campaign, as it now gets big, quickly.

It certainly was exciting to be up there for what was clearly a very important election last night.

Update: Several points on the NH Obama campaign. First, I do think his snide comment about Hillary in the Saturday NH debate created the opening for the Clinton campaign to blow it open with women. Second, his closing ad, which you can find below, was a feel good but not terribly compelling ad. They didn't run a final ad like the final Iowa ad which was very good. The Clinton campaign did close with a much better ad. Third, despite the overwhelming centrality of the economy to all voters right now, the Obama campaign has not emphasized the economy in the last week. It was not a central theme in his remarkable Iowa victory speech, nor in his NH stump, nor in his ads. Why? I'm not so sure.

Update 2: DavidNYC over at Daily Kos just posted a good NH post-mortem.