I have no fear of being wrong about prognosticating so will boldly go where others won’t and make predictions about the outcome of the Iowa caucuses tonight.

After Feb. 6, it’s hard to see any other result than two two-person races: Romney vs. Giuliani and Clinton vs. Obama

Republicans

The easiest one is perhaps the strangest: McCain will win the expectations game by coming in third behind Huckabee and Romney. (And after the dumbass mistakes Huckabee has made in the last few days, it wouldn’t surprise me if Romney came in first, despite recent polling otherwise.)

After spending so little time and money in Iowa, if McCain comes in third, he’ll almost certainly go on to win in New Hampshire next week, too. But after that, it looks pretty grim. He might do okay in South Carolina but he has no money to compete against Romney and especially Giuliani, who has also spent little or nothing in Iowa or New Hampshire.

Even if McCain wins in New Hampshire and Huckabee wins South Carolina, it probably won’t matter much in the long term because they’ll both lose in Florida and then the big states on Feb. 5. Starting Feb. 6, there will be a two-man race between Romney and Giuliani. Way too early to predict the outcome of that battle, but Giuliani has the support of the White House, Fox News and rightwing talk radio.

Democrats

Among Democrats, whoever comes in third is in trouble but among the top three, Clinton has the best chance of recovery. It’ll put her behind in New Hampshire — but, who knows, she could come in second and call herself the new “Comeback Kid,” as Bill did after Paul Tsongas bested him there in 1992 — but she will have California and New York, just to name two, in the bag on Feb. 5.

Polling caucus voters is wiggy, at best. Obama has been surging lately but my sense is, Iowa Democrats will take the perceived safest bet tonight and go with Clinton.

It’s true that the media has already turned on her big time. But this is nothing new, really. Despite the rightwing’s fantasy that the liberal media helps Democratic politicians, the Clintons have been despised by the Beltway Cool Kids — the very same folks who kissed George Bush’s ass for so long — from the outset of their national political careers.

If Obama wins tonight, he’ll get a tremendous boost from the momentousness of the fact that an African-American has won the first round in a U.S. election. He may even win in New Hampshire. But he will likely stall in South Carolina (sorry, Oprah) as well as in Florida.

If Obama comes in third tonight, he is still sitting on a pile of money and could still rally over the next few months but it will be an uphill climb.

If Edwards comes in third, he’s done. (Sorry, Trish.) He’s nowhere in New Hampshire, trailing in his native state of South Carolina and has nothing in the bank for Feb. 5. Unfortunately, if he wins tonight, very little, if anything, changes in this equation.

After Feb. 6, the Democratic race will narrow to Clinton and Obama. He has a chance but it is slim, at best.

For the record, if he’s still in the race, I plan on voting for Joe Biden in the California primary on Feb. 5.

Update: Well, it’s a good thing I didn’t mind being wrong about these prognostications yesterday because I got the main two points wrong. Obama won with 38 percent, Edwards came in second with 30 percent and Clinton came in third with 29 percent. Huckabee won substantially over Romney, whom the pundits are already calling last night’s “big loser.” But the biggest surprise for me was that “Fixin’ to Get Ready” Fred Thompson tied for third with John McCain. There was talk yesterday that Thompson would drop out after Iowa and throw his support to McCain. Don’t be surprised if Fred’s handlers — particularly his wife Jeri and their BFF Mary Matalin — convince him to postponed that move until after the South Carolina primary later this month.