Super Tuesday: Obama, Clinton War and McCain Scores

Super Tuesday has come and gone. Now that the dust has settled from a dizzying array of presidential contests on yesterday, two things are for certain. First, Senator John McCain is the presumptive nominee of the Republican party. Secondly, the Democratic contest between Senators Hilliary Clinton and Barack Obama is anything but certain.

Senator McCain claimed impressive victories from coast to coast. He won in states such as California, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, Arizona, and Missouri. Of these states, the two most noteworthy victories are in California (where he thumped his principal challenger, Governor Mitt Romney) and in Missouri (a state in which he narrowly edged out Governor Mike Huckabee in an important swing state that will be critical for both parties during the general election).. The biggest surprise of the night was the performance of Huckabee, who, despite being outspent by this opponents, acquitted himself very well. He won primaries in Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, and Tennessee. He also prevailed in the party‘s state convention in West Virginia and nearly beat McCain in Missouri. His performance blunted Romney’s claim that he is the “conservative alternative” to John McCain.

While the delegate totals are not completely official yet, Tuesday’s results give John McCain a commanding lead in the race for the Republican nomination. McCain is winning despite the fact that a substantial number of conservatives do not like him. Indeed, conservative radio personalities like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingrahm as well as Focus on the Family founder James Dobson have made it their cause to stop McCain. Thus far, they appear to be unsuccessful - if, for no other reason, the Republicans have a number of winner-take-all states which, in effect, do not penalize McCain for the fact he fails to carry the majority of self-identified conservatives. Furthermore, he is helped by the fact that there are two candidates - Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee - vying for the vote of social conservatives. And there is no indication that either candidate plans to get out of the race any time soon. Republicans have had a number of presidential races pitting so-called “moderates” vs. “conservatives” (Goldwater vs. Rockerfeller (1964), Ford vs. Reagan (1976), Reagan vs. Bush (1980), Bush vs. McCain (2000)). In this primary season, the anti-McCain conservative vote is split between Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, making it unlikely that either one of them will win the nomination.

Tuesday night was an unmitigated disaster for Mitt Romney, no matter how his campaign tries to spin the results. True, he did win some states - Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Dakota, Idaho, and Utah. However, Romney touted himself as the “true conservative” in the race, attacking McCain’s so-called “liberal” record. But it’s hard to credibly argue that one is the “conservative alternative” to John McCain and go 0 for the South on Super Tuesday. The South, especially within the last few decades, has become the ideological and geographical center of gravity for the Republican party in national politics. Indeed, the South’s centrality to the Republican party has only intensified since 1994 when the Republicans gained the majority of both houses of Congress. Ever since the Florida primary, Romney has been trying to portray the Republican race as a two-man contest between himself and John McCain. However, with the exception of Georgia where he ran a competitive third, Romney did worse than expected all over the South It was Huckabee, and not Romney, who narrowly bested McCain in Tennessee and Georgia, and who nearly defeated him in Missouri. If Romney cannot win in the South - which is the heart and soul of the Republican party - it is difficult to justify the rationale for his candidacy going forward.

But it gets worse for Romney. Tuesday’s results perpetuated two wicked trends that undermine his viability as a candidate: first, Romney only seems to win states where his opponents do not put up much of a fight (e.g. Wyoming, Maine, North Dakota, Minnesota, Nevada, Idaho). Wherever there have been spirited contests among Republicans (e.g., Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Missouri, and California), he has lost, with the exception of Michigan. The Michigan win points to a second problem for the Romney campaign: he only wins in states where he has a “home field” advantage - Michigan, his birthplace, Massachusetts, where he served as governor, and Utah, because of its large Mormon population.

Finally, his loss in California is the most devastating of all. The Romney campaign had hoped that, if they did not prevail in the Golden State, that they might still come away with a significant boatload of delegates because California Republicans allocate their delegates proportionately. However, incomplete returns thus far indicate that McCain is not only winning the overall vote total in the state, but he has carried virtually every county. If these numbers hold up (and there’s very little reason to believe they will change significantly) McCain will win virtually all of the delegates from the state of California and widen his lead over his opponents even more.

On the Democratic side, Super Tuesday was supposed to be the coronation of Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee. Instead, she finds herself hunkering down for a long drawn out battle with Barack Obama. Clinton won by large margins in states such as California, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Tennessee. She has also won by a comfortable margin in Arizona. However, Barack Obama won the most states of the two, carrying Georgia, Alabama, Illinois, Connecticut, Delaware, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, and Alaska (As of this writing, New Mexico is too close to call.). What is clear from Tuesday’s results is that the contest on the Democratic side will go on for several more weeks.

Both sides could claim significant symbolic victories in Tuesday’s contests. Clinton, for example, is excited about carrying Massachusetts, despite the very public endorsements of the Kennedy clan. In addition, Senator John Kerry and Governor Duval Patrick also endorsed Obama, but in the end, Clinton won the state handily. Secondly, while no one doubted she would take New York, the Clinton camp is very happy about how well they did in California. Despite the fact that Obama appeared to be making the Golden State a contest in recent days, Clinton still managed a double-digit win. Moreover, her victory points to a key weakness that Obama has - among Latino voters, Clinton beat Obama by a 2-to-1 margin. Obama clearly has a lot of work to do with Latino voters and he must poll better with this constituency group if he wants to overtake Senator Clinton and win the nomination.

For his part, Obama has plenty to boast about as well. Obama’s victories in Georgia and Alabama, two states which unfortunately played starring roles in the civil rights struggles of the 1960’s, communicate powerful messages of hope. Not only did a black candidate win two primaries in Deep South states, he did so without relying exclusively on African American votes. Obama did well among whites in both states. Second, he has bragging rights after a narrow win in Missouri, a key “purple” state which Democrats need to carry in the fall in order to win the general election. Obama ran well in states where Democrats either traditionally do not run well and he did well in the “battleground states” that both parties will battle over in order to win in November. This is a critical point for Democrats because it is imperative for them to expand the electoral map: in 2004, Democratic nominee John Kerry conceded more than 20 states to the Republicans by simply not campaigning there. Democrats cannot afford to take that many states “off the board” and hope to cobble together the electoral arithmetic needed in order to capture the White House.

Super Tuesday’s results make John McCain the overwhelming favorite to win the Republican nomination. It is difficult to envision a scenario where either Romney or Huckabee can catch up at this point. It appears that Republicans may wrap up their nomination fight before the Democrats do. While the delegate counts are not finalized, it looks as if Clinton and Obama are still in a close race. This is bad news for Clinton, who was the presumed nominee going in. The longer this race lasts, the stronger Barack Obama gets. Moreover, he raised $32 million in January (whereas Clinton raked in only $13.5 million); therefore, he will have the resources to continue his challenge. If the struggle between Clinton and Obama lasts well beyond the conclusion of the Republican nomination fight, that may be good news for the GOP. A prolonged battle among the Democrats may give John McCain time to unite his party. He has to make peace with conservatives who still do not trust him. However, in the process, McCain has to avoid the perception that he has “sold out” to the right wing of his party: otherwise, he will sacrifice the “maverick” reputation which makes him attractive to the independents that both parties desperately need to court in the general election.

All in all, the races for the nominations of both political parties this year have been, and continue to be, far more interesting and unpredictable than they have been in years.

All of a sudden, the Louisiana primary on February 9, which traditionally has never figured significantly in previous nomination fights, now takes on real significance.

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