Super Tuesday Still a 4 Man and 1 Women Race

Wednesday 5:55 A.M. Pacific

Clinton and Obama nearly tied (delegate and popular vote) while McCain polls more than Huckabee and Romney Combined!

Clinton can claim a slight edge from Super Tuesday but she has not Stopped Obama by any measure. Hillary won more Delegates but Obama picked up more states. The Democratic race may well go to the convention for the first time since 1948.

The GOP is just as divided with McCain winning the big important states and Huckabee is solid in the south. Romney is in third place but not out of the race picking up 5 states and he is ahead of Huckabee in the Delegate count.

Missouri *Obama 49% Clinton 48%
McCain wins with Missouri 34% Huckabee 33%
DeWayne's Rant (enlightened view of the election is below the LA Times article)

CLINTON: AR, AZ,CA, MA, NY, NJ, OK, TN Delegates 872
OBAMA:AK, AL, CT, CO, DE, GA, ID, IL, KS, MN, ND, UT Delegates 793

HUCKABEE: AL, AR, GA, TN, WV Delegates 190
McCAIN: AZ, CA,CT, DE, IL, MO, NJ, NY, OK Delegates 613
ROMNEY: CO, MA, MN, MT, ND, UT Delegates 269

Email Picture

Dean Hare / Associated Press

Supporters of Sen. Barack Obama outnumber supporters of Sen. Hillary Clinton and former Sen. John Edwards at the 2008 Idaho Caucus at the Latah Country Fairgrounds in Moscow, Idaho.

With no losers, the fight goes on

From the Los Angeles Times

By Doyle McManus and Peter Wallsten, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
February 6, 2008
WASHINGTON -- Not long ago, political strategists viewed Super Tuesday as a day that would likely crown the Republican and Democratic presidential nominees, a 24-state extravaganza that would bring the long primary campaign to an orderly conclusion.

They were wrong. Instead of producing nominees, Tuesday's voting revealed the fault lines for a continuing fight within each party.

The crazy quilt of primary and caucus results gave Republicans a clear front-runner in Sen. John McCain, but no sign that his rivals, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, would drop out soon and no sign of peace among the party's divided factions.

Democrats who once thought their race would wrap up early instead face a potentially long duel between Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, with votes divided not by ideology but, in many states, by race and ethnic group.

Clinton and Obama divided the nation almost down the middle, with Clinton winning at least eight states, including giants California and New York. Obama won at least 12 states, including Illinois and Georgia. The close result guaranteed days of uncertainty over the delegate count, followed by weeks more of renewed campaigning.

With the two candidates separated by only modest policy differences, Tuesday's results illuminated divisions of what scholars call "identity politics." Latinos turned out in large numbers and mostly supported Clinton; African American voters turned out too and voted overwhelmingly for Obama; and white voters divided, giving pluralities to Clinton in some states, to Obama in others.

McCain advanced significantly toward his party's nomination, winning nine states, including delegate-rich California, New York and Illinois. But exit polls showed that he had still not won the hearts of the party's most loyal conservatives, who divided most of their votes between Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, and Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas. That left the GOP closer to making McCain its nominee but no closer to joining ranks behind him.

The overall outcome: These primary races are not over in either party. The battle between Clinton and Obama will continue, probably through the March 4 primaries in Ohio and Texas and possibly beyond. McCain appears almost certain to win his party's nomination, but only after battling Romney and Huckabee for delegates in more states.

For Democrats, Tuesday's results showed both candidates strengthening their natural bases of support, with Clinton exerting dominance among Latinos and Obama beginning to show progress among white voters.

In fact, Obama proved, just as he did in last month's Iowa caucuses, that many whites will vote for a black candidate.

After winning just a quarter of the white vote in South Carolina's heavily black primary last month, Obama needed to show that his support spanned the races. On Tuesday, he made that point decisively, beating Clinton in states with tiny minority populations: Connecticut, Minnesota, Utah, North Dakota, Alaska and Idaho. He won nearly half of white voters in California.

Those numbers could help Obama's campaign convince potential donors and voters in future contests in the coming weeks that he can go the distance, particularly with important primaries coming up in Washington state, Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

For Clinton, Tuesday brought a clear consolidation of her strength among Latinos, a bloc she dominated in California. But exit polls showed Obama narrowing the gap in Arizona, where he won about 4 in 10 Latinos, and his victory in the Colorado caucuses suggests he mounted a successful courtship of Latinos in key areas of that state as well.

There were, however, some danger signs for Obama.

In Oklahoma, for example, an overwhelmingly white state won easily by Clinton, CNN exit polls showed that Obama won just 28% of whites. The result was similar in Tennessee, another so-called red state that Obama strategists have pointed to as a general election battleground should the Illinois senator win the nomination.

And although his campaign devoted a great deal of time and money courting Latinos in California, it seems he did not make much progress, losing the state's Latinos across all age groups.

Strengthening a Latino-black coalition could be crucial in a big upcoming primary in early March -- in Texas -- that many strategists now believe could be decisive.

Strategists for both Democratic campaigns said Tuesday they were encouraged by the results, but both said they expected the race to continue for weeks if not months as the campaigns scrap for delegates to the nominating convention.

"We're both prepared for a long, drawn-out affair," said Obama campaign manager David Plouffe.

The Republicans' divide was ideological -- and familiar. It was the same division between moderates, most of whom favor McCain, and conservatives, most of whom don't, that marked the results in earlier primaries from New Hampshire to South Carolina.

Across the nation, McCain led among Republicans who identified themselves as moderates or liberals, but Romney led among the larger group who called themselves conservatives, according to exit poll results published by the Associated Press.

In California, McCain won only a third of the vote among conservatives, who made up most of the Republican electorate; Romney won a plurality of conservatives' votes. That result was repeated in most other states; even in Arizona, where McCain won overall, he lost among conservatives.

That suggested that the Arizona senator has not yet won over substantial numbers of his party's most loyal supporters, despite weeks of effort on his part to show that he is as conservative as his rivals.

"McCain wanted to use Super Tuesday to silence his critics and become the consensus nominee, but he fell a little short," said Neil Newhouse, a Republican pollster. "McCain moved the ball forward, but he didn't score a touchdown. It's not a bad showing, but it's not especially strong."

Romney won primaries or caucuses in six states on Tuesday; Huckabee won four.

As a result, Newhouse said, there is no reason for Romney or Huckabee to get out of the race at this point. "They can't look at these results and say, 'I've had enough, I'm throwing in the towel,' " he said.

McCain's poor showing among conservatives "is a formidable number to overcome," agreed veteran GOP strategist Eddie Mahe. "If Romney comes close in California,(He didn't) I think the conservatives will push to keep him in. They do not want McCain to be the presumptive nominee. . . . The animosity toward McCain [among conservatives] is very broad and very deep."

DeWaynes Rant/View of Super Tuesday

Just my Observation the animosity toward McCain is deep rooted precisely because he is a true Goldwater Western Republican! He is also an independent thinker, he has a military strategic mind. Which means if an idea, a program or a war strategy proves wrong he is quite willing to "tear up" the playbook and write a New One!

McCain does not give "lipservice" to anyone which means he can and has told Evangilicals to taking a flying leap. He has called Bush on the Liberal spendthrift ways of his administartion while spouting Conservative claptrap. If Bush ANY Bush Dad or Son is a conservative I am a Heterosexual!

What Rush Limbaugh can not abide is the thought of a man in the White House that his corporate paymasters cannot control and manipulate.

The Big Looser Super Tuesday was the Howard Beale of the Late American Empire, Rush Limbaugh the gaseous pontiff of Palm Beach, Minstrel to Nero while he fiddles like the Devil down Georgia way!

Rush has been spouting drivel,hate and aspersions to McCain's patriotism (indeed ANY Veteran who disagrees with the Chicken Hawk) for weeks, determined to see Romney (former Liberal Gov of Massachusetts) or Huckabee (darling of the American Taliban)get this nomination.

What does Rush care anyway he is NOT a Republican!
or a Conservative!

He is a Demagogue just like another famous "commentator" who rode his racist/bigoted rheyoric into the US Senate. Limbaugh should be thrown from the top of Mt RUSHMORE,,the American Tarpeian Rock!

Lets not forget the pearls of wisdom from ole Howard oops Rush,,

Rush Limbaugh on Bush’s legacy:

“Long after we’re all dead and gone, when historians who are not yet born begin to write about this era, they’re going to place George Bush in the upper echelon of presidents who had a great vision for America, who looked beyond our shores, who didn’t just restrict himself to domestic policy niceties.”

Rush may not know it,(he wouldn't care if it did not come from his mouth) but there is already a debate going on among historians. “Many historians are now wondering whether Bush, in fact, will be remembered as the very worst president in all of American history.”

Enough of clueless, heaving gasbags!

John McCain is an American Patriot, he is a True Republican and Fiscal Conservative. McCain believes in the Libertarian ideas of Limited Government. He is a Strict Constructionist in his views of the Judiciary.

The most important issue for John McCain in the last decade has been this,,

John McCain believes that a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people" must remain ever faithful to that noble charge. America needs leadership devoted to the public interest, not the special interest, and a government that fulfills its duties with unfailing integrity, accountability, and common sense.

Those who serve in positions of public trust have a patriotic duty to serve the national interest with integrity and accountability, to conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of the people we are privileged to serve, and to devote ourselves to America's agenda, not that of narrow special interests.

This philosophy is what gives Rush Limbaugh and Karl Rove nightmares after 8 years of Howdy Doody in the White House, a complacent malleable schlemiel who has catered to the Fortune 500, His Corporate String pullers are scared to death of John McCain and his "maverick nature"

Its why in one of the most shameful episodes in American Political History George Walker Bush attacked John McCain in 2000 (after Michigan) as "Mentally unfit for public office"
because he had been a "Prisoner of War"

Only a Dishonorable man heaps Scorn and Aspersion on an Honorable Man!

McCain did not directly reply to Bush in 2000 but a political enemy was made. The two men Loathe each other! Last year when McCain maneuvered against Bush making him squirm and writhe to defend the right to employ Torture McCain allowed Bush to impale himself I have to admit I deeply enjoyed the show.

This election is about a battle for the Soul of the Republican Party, for the values that Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan espoused. Unfortunately I feel it is for naught the Reagan era is long past and there is really no one not even John McCain who will be able to resist the

Winds of Change (had to say it) The Clinton/Obama juggernaut.
More on my view of the Democratic race in a future post.

DeWayne

Last Edit I was thinking of that great Charlie Daniels song The Devil went down to Georgia and I found this hilarious Muppet version look closely at the Devil and tell me who it looks like! The show is from 1978! Who would have thought Jim Henson was such a Psychic!