With John McCain projected to win New Hampshire on the Republican side, and Mike Huckabee having won in Iowa, and Fred Thompson choosing to make a last stand in South Carolina in two weeks, and Rudy Giuliani waiting for victory in Florida in three weeks, the story is that nobody is going to have any money. McCain is broke, and this victory isn’t going to improve his financial prospects enormously. There’s no evidence Huckabee is raising lots of cash. Thompson is out of funds. My guess is that Rudy’s December was so dreadful that he’s running low.

What if they run a race without money? They will have to depend on media interviews and YouTube stunts rather than commercials. They will want to debate more. They will have to try to make news with speeches. Kind of exciting.

Only Mitt Romney, with his huge personal fortune, has the money he needs. The problem for him is that he has surely spent far more than we know already — and contrary to the blather of the last 48 hours, he evidently didn’t “close” well in New Hampshire with his new “Washington Is Broken” message. And with a cold eye, he would have to wonder whether he really has found his voice or has  learned a hard lesson. He could double down and stay in the race and outspend everybody, but rich people tend not to set matches to their wealth when the prospect of return is questionable. New Hampshire was surely his best shot in the nation.

There is no way on earth to know who is going to win this, but Romney’s two losses make it most unlikely that he will be on the podium in Minneapolis in August.