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Despite Late Reports that Obama Has Overtaken Clinton for Dem Delegate Lead -- and All-Out Attacks on McCain By Hard-Line GOP Right-Wingers Continue -- 'Super Tuesday' Results Appear to Make This Final Pairing For the Fall Campaign More and More Likely

THURSDAY SPECIAL
By Skeeter Sanders

If the contest for the White House was an athletic event, then Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois will likely continue to run neck and neck in what is proving to be a long, grueling marathon for the Democratic presidential nomination that may last all the way to the Democrats' Denver convention in August.

Meanwhile, for Senator John McCain of Arizona, former Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and former Governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, Super Tuesday turned out to be the GOP's version of a triple-threat steel-cage wrestling match. While McCain and Huckabee effectively tag-teamed Romney to the canvas Tuesday, a defiant Romney refused to surrender and vowed to fight on.

For Democrats, it felt more like an extremely close general election in November than the closest thing to a truly national primary on a Tuesday night in February, as Clinton and Obama traded victories back and forth in 24 states from the Atlantic to the Pacific. As the night wore on, it became clear that Democrats were agonizing over having make a historic choice between a woman and an African-American as their party’s presidential nominee.

In a surprise twist, Obama surpassed Clinton in at least one television network's tally of the total number of delegates the candidates have racked up after a chaotic Super Tuesday. With the delegate count still under way, NBC News said Obama appears to have won around 840 delegates in Tuesday’s contests, while Clinton earned about 830 — “give or take a few,” Tim Russert, the network’s Washington bureau chief, said Wednesday on "NBC Nightly News."

The running totals for the two, which includes previous contests and the party officials known as “superdelegates,” are only about 70 delegates apart, Russert said.

Clinton was portrayed in many news accounts Tuesday as the night’s big winner in the popular vote, but Obama’s campaign says he wound up with a higher total where it really counts — the delegates who will choose the party’s nominee at the convention. Nonetheless, both Democratic contenders are far from the magic number of 2,025 delegates needed to secure the nomination.

Clarity of any sort eluded the Democrats as campaigns turned to the next rounds. On Saturday, Louisiana and Washington state hold two-party contests while Nebraska Democrats and Kansas Republicans make their picks. Then comes a larger series of two-party primaries in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia on Tuesday.

For Republicans, the night was anything but unclear, as McCain piled up victory after victory -- mostly in states with winner-take-all delegate rules -- to emerge with a commanding lead for the GOP nomination.

McCain, whose campaign was left for dead last summer, came back to capture more delegates (620) than Romney (270) and Huckabee (176) combined, putting him past the halfway mark to the 1,191 delegates needed to win the top prize. His victories stretched from New York to California, the biggest prize.

Romney Derailed, But Vows To Keep Fighing

Despite his failure to attract support from evangelical voters, Romney pledged to fight all the way to the Republican nominating convention in Minneapolis this summer if necessary, despite being overpowered by both McCain and Huckabee.

He celebrated victories Tuesday in his home state of Massachusetts, Utah, Montana, Alaska, Colorado and North Dakota. But he was pummeled elsewhere on a day he had hoped to prove his presidential campaign wasn't doomed.

"This isn't just about the heart and soul of our party, it isn't just about which party's going to win in November. This is about the future course of our country," he said to about 500 supporters, many of whom wore stunned looks on their faces as the returns came in.

With almost missionary zeal, Romney vowed to stay in the race, casting his campaign as a battle to save the future of the nation. "This isn't just about the heart and soul of our party, it isn't just about which party's going to win in November. This is about the future course of our country," he said to about 500 supporters, many of whom wore stunned looks on their faces as the returns came in.

"I'm convinced that if Washington continues on its same course, America will emerge not as the great nation of the 21st Century by the end, but as a second-tier power. It will be passed by someone else; I can't tell you who it will be, but it will be passed by someone else."

Romney added: "That will not happen. We'll keep American strong."

Conservatives Snub McCain; Evangelicals Spurn Romney

In spite of his strong showing on Tuesday, McCain still has a major weakness: He remains deeply unpopular with party conservatives, who split their votes between Romney and Huckabee. McCain asked his loudest conservative critics Wednesday to "calm down" and support his Republican presidential candidacy.

But his appeals are likely to fall on deaf ears among a number of influential right-wing pundits and commentators -- most prominently radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh -- who are hell-bent on stopping him.

Likewise, Romney's appeals to Christian conservatives also fell on deaf ears -- as this blogger predicted weeks ago -- with Huckabee's Southern Baptist-dominated Christian evangelical base emphatically turning thumbs down on Romney's bid to become the nation's first Mormon president. Southern Baptists do not view Mormons as genuine Christians because of doctrinal differences on the nature of God and the rules of salvation and consider Mormons a cult.

Emboldened by a sweep of all five southern Super Tuesday states that were in play, Huckabee suggested that he and McCain were now the two main GOP candidates.

"The one way you can't win a race is to quit it, and until somebody beats me, I'm going to answer the bell for every round of this fight," the former Arkansas governor said in an interview with The Associated Press. Huckabee made a similar vow in a speech to cheering home-state supporters in Little Rock, portraying himself as the best choice for conservative voters.

He said his strong showings in the South demonstrated that "conservatives do have a choice, because the conservatives have a voice."

Clinton Captures the Big 'Blue' States -- But Obama Sweeps the 'Red' Ones

Clinton won eight states, including the big, delegate-rich states of California, Massachusetts, New Jersey and -- not surprisingly -- her home state, New York. Not to be outdone, Obama won 13 states, including Alabama, Georgia, Connecticut and -- again, not surprisingly -- his home state, Illinois.

But Obama did something else: He won in states with overwhelmingly white populations, where a black candidate would have had great difficulty winning two decades ago: Montana, Alaska, North Dakota, Idaho, Minnesota -- once and for all debunking the notion, repeated by former President Bill Clinton during the bitterly contested January 26 South Carolina Democratic primary -- that a black candidate could not draw white voter support.

Moreover, Obama scored impressive victories in "red" states that have voted Republican in the last two general elections, including Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri and Utah.

Obama wasted no time Wednesday in seeking to convince Democrats that he offers the party its best hope of winning the White House this fall -- by warning that Republicans will have "a dump truck full" of dirt to unload on Clinton if the former first lady becomes the Democratic nominee.

At a news conference in Chicago, Obama offered some pointed advice to members of Congress and other party leaders who will attend the national convention this summer as "superdelegates" not chosen in primaries or caucuses.

He said that if he winds up winning more delegates in voting than the former first lady, they "would have to think long and hard about how they approach the nomination when the people they claim to represent have said, 'Obama's our guy,'" he said.

Exit Polls May Prompt Clinton-Obama Ticket in the Fall

But exit polls taken after voters cast their ballots revealed stunning strengths -- and weaknesses -- for both candidates, which could increase pressure on Clinton and Obama to settle their differences and join forces as the Democratic Party ticket in the fall campaign.

Obama greatly expanded his appeal with white voters — particularly white men — even as he scored an overwhelming majority of blacks, while Clinton solidified her support among Latinos -- with the notable exception of young Latinos under 30, who broke for Obama.

Clinton also won solid support among women, who made up 57 percent of Democratic Super Tuesday voters, while Obama scored high among men. Obama drew the lion's share of younger voters under 30, while Clinton swept older voters over 55.

While voters weren't specifically asked if they wanted to see Clinton and Obama become running mates, the exit polls did show that Democratic voters would be happy with either candidate as the party's nominee. But with voter sentiment nearly evenly divided between the two, a Clinton-Obama combo would appear to be much more formidable against the Republicans in the fall than either candidate separately.

And consider this: So far in this primary season, Democrats are drawing record-breaking turnouts across the country, almost twice as many voters as Republicans: 14 million to 8 million, according to CNN. And independents -- who make up a third of the general electorate and without whom neither party can win in November -- are leaning 2-1 in favor of the Democrats.

McCain Appeals For GOP Unity -- But Right-Wingers Are Unlikely to be Moved

With his lead over his rivals widening, McCain expressed hope that criticism from within his own party would ease. "I do hope that at some point we would just calm down a little bit and see if there's areas we can agree on," he said Wednesday, the eve of a scheduled appearance before conservative activists at the annual Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) conference in Washington.

But these hard-line, so-called "conservatives" -- who, to this blogger, are really right-wing ideologues only slightly to the left of Benito Mussolini -- are in no mood to hear any of it.

Why? Because McCain, in these neo-fascists' estimation, committed two unpardonable sins:

1) He teamed up with Democratic Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin to move through a law that severely restricted campaign fundraising in federal elections. This infuriated the far right because the McCain-Feingold law robbed the GOP of its decades-long fundraising advantage over the Democrats. Now, it's the Democrats who are flush with money and the Republicans who are strapped for cash.

2) McCain co-sponsored a compromise bill that would curtail the nation's unsecured borders, while figuring out a way to deal with the 12 million illegal immigrants already here. That bill, unfortunately, was killed off by the rabid blatherings of the right-wing talk-radio hosts and their equally rabid listeners, who'll accept nothing less than the government building "Berlin Walls" on our northern and southern borders and throwing the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants already living here out of the country.

A third of those illegals have native-born, U.S.-citizen children who cannot be deported. In a country that prides itself on supporting the family, are we really willing to deport the parents of of three million American children? This blogger don't think so.

Prediction For November Matchup: Clinton-Obama vs. McCain-Huckabee

One thing that has been widely noticed in this campaign is the refusal of either McCain or Huckabee to fling mud at each other. On the contrary, they've directed their fire at Romney -- and only in response to Romney's attack ads against them in Iowa and New Hampshire and his biting remarks against McCain on the stump.

And McCain's effusive praise for Huckabee's southern success in his victory speech Tuesday night -- compared to his grudging praise for Romney -- is leading to speculation that the Arizona senator and the former Arkansas governor my become running mates in the fall campaign.

Such a combination would make sense, as it would instantly shore up McCain's support among conservatives (except, of course, the right-wing talk-radio demagogues). and it would neatly fit with the longstanding tradition of a party's president and vice-presidential candidates hailing from different regions of the country; in this case and Westerner and a Southerner.

It's a different story for the Democrats: The only fall combo that would make sense, given their almost even voter strength - not to mention the almost irresistable pull of making history -- is Clinton and Obama. Clinton without Obama would likely lose the support of young people. Obama without Clinton would likely fail to win over Latinos and older voters.

One thing is certain: With a matchup like this in the fall campaign, the only mudslinging would likely come from the independent "527" groups beyond the candidates' control.

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Volume III, Number 10
Copyright 2008, Skeeter Sanders. All rights reserved.

Authors Website: http://www.skeeterbitesreport.com

Authors Bio:
I'm a native of New York City who's called the Green Mountain state of Vermont home since the summer of 1994. A former freelance journalist, I'm a fiercely independent freethinker who's highly skeptical of authority figures -- especially when they're on the wrong side of the issues I care about. But I'm not afraid to also call into question those with whom I would usually be "on the same page" if and when they, too, are on the wrong side of the issues I care about.