The Weather in South Carolina May Determine the Winner

The day the New Hampshire primary took place the weather was unusually warm with temperatures in the 50's. New Englanders flocked to the polls in huge numbers. It wasn't that hard to get the vote out.

Today in South Carolina it will be different. They're expecting 3-5 inches of snow in the northern part of the state with cold rain and flurries down south. Southern states don't like that kind of weather, and that's going to make it hard to turn out the leaners and those who aren't terribly committed to a candidate. You can have all the emotional excitement about a candidate you want, but the cold tends to dampen the enthusiasm if you have to go out in it to vote. This could pose a problem for guys like Fred Thompson who is counting on newly energized voters to go and support him.

Speaking of Fred, he was asked recently his thoughts on global warming and this answer is the kind of thing that's drawing more voters to him:

"I'm opposed to global warming... I was up in New Hampshire a little while back for a debate - that's the only reason we went, because the circus was in town... and while we're on our way, there was a snowdrift that must have been six feet high... on this snowbank, there were about 15 signs stuck in that said, "STOP GLOBAL WARMING." They don't see any irony in things like that in New Hampshire."

There's no question we're going through warming and we need to understand it more... But we don't have the answers to a lot of questions. We don't know if this is the end o the story, or something that will be followed by cooling... If we shut down our entire economy, it still wouldn't do anything about what's coming from India and China... We are a small part of the solution, and we don't even know the extent of the problem yet."

That's exactly right. Let's hope the Fred Heads put on their long undies and get to the polls today.

UPDATE: Here's a good report on Fred's final South Carolina push.