What Does NH Mean for GOP?

As candidates close up shop in New England, the chattering classes look to the state of the race. Here are four takes on the Republican outcome in New Hampshire:

• Wall Street Journal editors give John McCain credit “for sheer doggedness,” saying the Iraq surge’s success gave him a boost. He’s now the candidate “best positioned to appeal” to all GOPers, but uniting the party’s “anxious and fractious wings” will take new platforms; the Journal coyly suggest tax cuts.

• Both McCain and Mitt Romney need Michigan badly, Outside the Beltway’s James Joyner insists. Mac is cash-poor and must cement a frontrunner position. Mitt—born in the Automotive State—becomes “increasingly implausible” with each loss, and a second defeat “in his own backyard…would inflict a mortal wound.”
• Matt Yglesias allows Mitt’s “two silvers and a gold” speech “sounded ridiculous,” but says Romney’s still in “okay shape.” Michigan’s not a must-win for the delegate-count leader: He can survive second-place finishes so long as the gold medalist keeps changing.
• The National Review’s Mark Steyn is downcast, saying all the candidates lost last night—even Mac’s comeback is being written off as “a local phenomenon.” The GOP needs a new candidate. Alan Keyes, anyone?

(More New Hampshire primary stories.)