Super Tuesday Re-Cap, Romney is Out and McCain is the GOP Man.

Wow, what a night Tuesday was. Lots of crazy action happening. Overall I would say that things happened roughly how we all thought they would with one exception: Mike Huckabee.

Huckabee started of Tuesday with a bang when he won the West Virginia Caucuses defeating Mitt Romney by 5 points 52-47. This win was not without controversy though as Romney accused Senator John McCain of turning a "backroom Washington deal" where McCain supposedly told all of his supporters to vote for Huckabee to keep Romney from winning a state he had previously thought would be his. McCain denied this accusation but if you look at the facts this could be totally plausible. Bill Richardson was accused to doing this same thing in Iowa where it was thought that he informed his people to throw their weight behind Barack Obama. McCain needed Romney to falter on Tuesday in order to keep him at bay and to try to secure the nomination that night. If McCain (who did not receive the needed 15% to be viable) did tell his supporters to back Huckabee that would have been a very smart strategy, once Huckabee wins this state Romney is now already behind where he thought he would be on this day. I would not call this strategy (if it did occur, but I mean Come On!) devious as Romney's camp did, things like this can happen by themselves in a caucus based on the rules in a caucus, once this occurred you had a feeling that this probably wont be Mitt Romney's day. Huckabee's good day/night continued as he went on to win several Southern states including his home state Arkansas. Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama were the other states Huckabee won. This also contributed to Romney's Super Tuesday Failure because in order for him to keep up with McCain Romeny was going to have to win these southern states to keep the delegate count close. John McCain did just as well as we all thought, winning 9 states including the big delegate states of California and New York as well as the bellwether state Missouri. He now has 714 delegates and only need 1191 to secure the nomination.

All of this led to Mitt Romney suspending his campaign yesterday at the CPAC convention, a Conservative Convention where he praised heavily by all. Romney gave a great conservative speech and said he was stepping out because he wanted to give the party time to get ready for the General Election, he didn't want to "forestall the launch of a national campaign and be making it easier for Senator Clinton or Obama to win." This has set up Mitt Romney as the Conservative Candidate for the next election. (be it 2012 if the Dems win or if McCain chooses to serve only 1 term or 2016) There has been much ballyhoo about how all of the Conservative talk radio hosts have hated on John McCain saying that he is not conservative enough for them and had been begging people to vote for Romney, these are the same people that backed candidates who had no chance at winning the nomination: Tom Tancredo, Duncan Hunter, even Rudy Giuliani. All of these talk radio people waited too long to get behind Romney who they didn't have great things to say about earlier in this campaign and now it appears the GOP has their candidate, and he is not nearly the nominee that they had hoped for. I think this is a clear sign that these talk radio people: Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham (who introduced Romney before he spoke at CPAC) are losing their influence on the voters.

Democrats Duke it Out...Still Nothing New.

On the other side of the isle the Democratic race went exactly the way we had expected, 1600 or so delegates were handed out on Tuesday and Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama split them very fairly. Obama won the majority of states however 14-8 but Clinton won the big states: California, New Jersey, and New York. Obama took many of the caucus states, where good organizations and enthusiasm is needed in order to pull off a win. Obama won Minnesota, Colorado, Idaho, North Dakota, Alaska, and Kansas on Tuesday; he also took the primaries in Georgia, Alabama, Delaware, Connecticut (on of the few surprises), and his home state of Illinois where he defeated Clinton 2-1. Clinton took her two home states of New York and Arkansas. Obama supporters have been happy to point out that Clinton's victory in New York was much closer than Obama's in Illinois which they point to as proof he is indeed winning this fight and on a roll. Hillary did take California by a sizeable margin, which defied a number of polls that came out right before Tuesday that showed Obama tied or even leading in some cases in California. Overall we still don’t know who is going to come out of this race ahead, we will know more over the weekend and into next Tuesday where Primaries will be held in the "Potomac States" of Maryland, Virginia, and D.C. on the 12th. Caucuses will be held in Washington and Nebraska. Those caucuses look to be Obama country as well as Maryland and D.C given their Black population, Hillary will have a shot at Virginia but it appears she will be holding back and putting money into Ohio and Texas who will vote on March 4th.

Its Obama and Clinton and Down the Stretch They Come!

A couple of new polls have been released in the past couple of days that are shedding some light on the Democratic race on Super Tuesday. Most notably was the release of the new National Nomination poll from CNN where their data showed Obama clearing out ALL of Clinton's lead and had him ahead of her by 3 points, 49-46. There is also a new poll in New Jersey by Reuters/CSPAN/Zogby that has Hillary and Barack in a dead heat. Out in California, the most important (or at least delegate rich) state that is voting on Tuesday, there are two new polls showing Obama with a lead of 6 and a lead of 1.

Now all of this doesn't mean a terrible amount, but its not like this isn’t news either. Because nearly all Democratic Primaries/Caucuses are not winner take all; as long as the two candidates stay within about 10% of each other they will split the delegates pretty evenly. What this does show is that Barack as ALL the Mo, I've seen people argue that if Super Tuesday were another week away Obama could possibly come out with a "win"(more states, more delegates) and I agree with that, it seems that Obama is really striking a chord in America. Obama even took out an ad in local markets in Super Tuesday states during the Super Bowl.




It appears that this will be a race down to the wire and Super Tuesday wont be a big help in figuring out who the Democratic nomination will be. A "doomsday" scenario for the Democrats would be Pennsylvania (YAY!). Ben Smith, of Politico.com, described this situation on Saturday.


"The current consensus is that this whole thing might wrap up Tuesday; or it might drag through March 4.

But burnt-out campaign operatives are also grimly contemplating another possibility: the "Pennsylvania scenario."

Pennsylvania, on April 22, is the last big state to vote, with 158 pledged delegates. It also comes more than a month after the previous primary, in Mississippi, on March 11.

And so, if the two Democrats are still alive then, Pennsylvania becomes Iowa, on steroids. The campaigns and the media all decamp to Harrisburg. Clinton and Obama develop a keen interest in the concerns of the Amish. Michael Nutter becomes a major national figure."

So if a winner is still not declared by March 11 this whole big circus is coming to the Keystone State. For a MONTH. I feel torn about this situation because if this nomination process has to go this far I have a feeling things will go through at least one more "nasty cycle" which will eventually start to hurt the Democrats and strengthen the Republicans because it seems that McCain might have his candidacy by early Wednesday morning, giving plenty of time to the GOP to point and laugh at all the infighting the Democrats are doing, it also gives time for the Republicans to solidify their base and get behind McCain.

On the other hand if Pennsylvania turned into Iowa for a month I would be very excited to see the whole political process right in front of my face. Living in a college town (State College) the candidates would stop here every time they go to Pittsburgh from Philadelphia and vice versa. (And Allentown and Scranton/Wilkes-Barre) Hillary and Obama would be having rallies in the Bryce Jordan Center and shaking hands with Joe Paterno, it would be CRAZY.

Obama gains support, Hillary wins Florida, John Edwards and Rudy Giuliani say good bye, McCain....the front runner?

This week has been CRAZY in the world of politics; from the entire Kennedy family endorsing Obama to GWB's last State of the Union speech to Edwards and Giuliani dropping out. So much has gone on that it hard to keep up with it all but I'll try to sort through it here.

Obama, the new king of Camelot.

Barack Obama got the endorsement of Caroline Kennedy, daughter of John F. Kennedy, Senator Ted Kennedy and his son Congressman Patrick Kennedy all endorsed Obama early this week. Caroline said that Obama was the 1st politician, and person for that matter, that had been able to inspire people like her father had done...pretty high praise. These endorsements, especially Caroline's and Ted's are very important to Obama, this is the 1st time Carolina has endorsed someone since the 1980 election when Senator Kennedy ran. Ted Kennedy has long been a friend to the Latino community and he is expected to court their votes for Obama in the border states. Kennedy was a co-author on a bill with John McCain on Illegal Immigration, the one that is getting McCain KILLED because it apparently is de-facto amnesty. These endorsements leads us to what happened in Florida on Tuesday night on the Democratic side, Hillary declared victory but received no delegates.


If Hillary wins the Florida Primary but gets no delegates does anyone really care?

Hillary Clinton won the Democratic Primary in Florida this week but due to Florida ignoring the DMC's mandate that they keep their primary behind Super Tuesday Florida was stripped of their delegates making the primary a "beauty contest". None of the candidates campaigned at all in the Sunshine State but at the end of the night 1.7 Million democrats still came out to cast votes. Hillary ended up winning handily by about 20 points, she flew down to celebrate her "victory" as a ploy to take some momentum away from Obama which he received when he was endorsed by the Kennedy Clan. Florida, like Michigan, does not have any delegates and it will be very interesting to see when it comes to the Convention if there will be an attempt by the Clinton Campaign to seat these delegates which both broke for her. All in all though it seems like stupid politics because Hillary can say she won but it counts for nothing, it’s like a pre-season football game.


McCain maybe the Front Runner, but he’s not a Straight Talker.

John McCain won the Florida Primary on Tuesday night, a huge win for him giving the Arizona senior senator the delegate lead and the ability to call himself the front runner, he won in a closed primary where only Republicans could vote in. Much was made of this due to McCain's ability to court Independents very well in the states he had previously won (NH, SC). McCain even mentioned it in his victory speech. McCain's win is even more interesting and you could say even more solid by looking at some of the exit polls. Voters were asked what they thought was the most important issue in their year's campaign was 45% said the Economy, presumably Mitt Romney's best issue and something he campaigns about all the time, only 21% said the biggest issue was Terrorism, McCain's best issue, and McCain still won.

Now McCain is considered the front-runner but in last night's GOP debate in California he was not the Straight Talker he claims to be. In the lead up to the Florida Primary McCain began to talk about how Mitt Romney was for "Timetables" in Iraq. This charge comes from an interview Romney did early in 2007 where he spoke of timetables for the Iraqi Government meet certain expectations, not of a timetable to get out of Iraq. McCain twisted Romney's words and actually backed up his statement on CNN last time, even after Anderson Cooper (or as I call him 360) read the entire quote and it was clear Romney was not for a timetable to get out of Iraq. All of that dishonesty doesn’t appear to be hurting McCain however as he picked up Rudy Giuliani's endorsement last night and Arnold Swarchenegger's this afternoon.


John Edwards is out, so is Rudy.

John Edwards got out of the presidential campaign after coming in a distant 3rd in South Carolina as well a distant 3rd in the Florida primary (but we know that didn’t count...HILLARY). I never saw Edwards as really viable in all honesty. It made no difference that he had practically been campaigning for the last 4 years. When it came to Iowa, his strong hold, he still couldn’t defeat Obama, a newcomer. It was over right there; a couple of 3rd place finishes after than including a despicable 4% showing in Nevada. It will be very interesting to see who he decides to endorse and when. The longer he waits to endorse the more power it gives to Hillary because Edwards campaigned as a change agent like Obama, and if he does not endorse Obama or waits until after Super Tuesday to do so Barack could be busted. But if Edwards comes out tomorrow and endorses him then it could give Obama a bump into Feb. 5th. On the other hand if Edwards goes and endorses Hillary I see that as putting the icing on the nomination for her.

Rudy Giuliani ended his bid for President this week after a terrible showing in Florida, the state where he planned to win and jump-start him into the race. After laying low in almost all the early states (besides NH where he campaigned heavily and still got blasted) Rudy came down to the Sunshine State to try to win it but he failed, miserably. Once the national front-runner, Rudy dropped quickly once the other states started to fall to the likes of Huckabee, McCain, and Romney. All the other candidates rolled into Florida with momentum, money, organizations that were thriving. Rudy continued to fall in the polls and landed 3rd the last one taken before the primary on Tuesday, and that’s where he finished, 3rd. This was a failed strategy from the beginning and it killed Rudy.