1.  Mike Huckabee shined in the south.  The former Southern governor's performance surprised me.  I figured Huck was done after losses in South Carolina and Florida.  Up until curtain, the polls from states such as Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee seemed to bear that out.  However, a late round of polls from Insider Advantage, which were released after I made my predictions, showed the last-minute numbers breaking in Huckabee's favor.

2.  California was huge.  The Golden State has the largest population, yes, but I'm not stating the obvious here.  It was the margin of victory by Hillary Clinton and John McCain that will make California's results last night pivotal in both nomination races.  As the day dawned yesterday, much of the discussion centered around who would win California.  Both Clinton and Barack Obama and McCain and Mitt Romney were deadlocked there in the polls.

The earlier results heightened the anticipation.  With McCain winning the big block states in the Northeast, folks were wondering if Romney might win California and head off a rout.  On the Democratic side, with Barack Obama amassing several impressive wins east of the Mississippi, a win in California would give Obama claim to a decisive victory on Super Tuesday.

However, the outcomes differed on both accounts.  Instead of Romney gaining traction in the face of McCain's big night, he - and any remaining chance he had at the nomination - was blown away in California.  McCain's 10-point victory sealed the deal for him.  He will be the GOP nominee for president.  For Obama, the potential to wake up as frontrunner this morning vanished instantly when California was called for Hillary with less than 20% of the vote counted.  Her 10-point victory was a resounding confirmation that she is indeed still the one to beat.

3.  Huckabee's impact on Romney. One common theme during the days before yesterday was the effect that Huckabee would have on Romney's chance at the nomination.  Looking at the numbers from last night, Romney was hurt by the fact that Huckabee was still in the running.  However, the degree to which that was the case is debatable.

I've done a quick study on how the results would have changed if Huck had dropped out after Florida.  As expected, the larger a proportion of Huck's vote I give to Romney in my analysis, the closer Romney's delegate count gets to McCain's.  But even with Romney getting 2 out of 3 Huckabee votes, he still does not surpass McCain on the scoreboard yesterday - and that's not including the advantage McCain had already heading into the day.  Bottom line:  Huck did impact Romney, but McCain would still be the frontrunner even with Huckabee out of the race.

4.  Democratic turnout was very impressive. Voters had turned out in far larger numbers on the Democratic side in the primaries and caucuses before yesterday.  That trend continued.  Missouri is a great example.  Approximately 820,000 people voted in the Democratic primary.  On the GOP side, the number was less than 600,000.  The story was the same in practically every primary held yesterday.  Even in a strong red states like Georgia and Tennessee, Democratic primary voters outnumbered their GOP counterparts by 75,000 or so.

I'm not sure what to make of these turnout results.  The initial reaction would be one of anxiety looking ahead to November.  Certainly, if the general election reflects the same kind of participation, it is hard to see a happy ending for the GOP.  That said, we've still got a long way to go until November, and the Democrats now face the challenge of keeping up the intensity over a sustained period of time.  That's not an easy task.  Could they be peaking at the wrong time?  We'll have to wait and see.

5.  A brokered convention likely for the Democrats - only. Both Hillary and Obama can make the claim that they had a good showing last night.  That fact indicates the tightness of their race and the increasing likelihood that neither will secure nomination before the convention in August.  Adding to that probability are the super delegates, which make up a substantial portion of the total delegate pool.  They will be by and large uncommitted before the convention.  With the committed delegate counts so close, it is difficult to see how one or the other can get to the needed majority before the primaries end.

On the other hand, McCain's big night has solidified the chance that we will know the GOP nominee well before the convention in September.  I was wavering a bit on my third edict after Huckabee won some states I had predicted for McCain, but the result in California put my hesitation to bed - just in time for me to get there myself.

Whew!  What a night!  It reminded me - as if that were necessary - why I love the competition of politics so much.  This election season has been filled with excitement and drama, ups and downs, changing frontrunners and disappointing dropouts.  What more could we ask for?  And to think, we haven't even settled on the party nominees yet!