Super Tuesday Results

Democrats - 2,025 delegates needed to win nomination
Clinton: 783 (AS, AZ, AR, CA, MA, NJ, NY, OK, TN)
Obama: 709 (AL, AK, CO, CT, DE, GA, ID, IL, KS, MN, ND, UT)

Republicans - 1191 delegates needed to win nomination
McClain: 559 (AZ, CT, DE, IL, OK, NJ, NY, MO, CA)
Romney: 265 (AZ, MA, MN, ND, UT, MT, CO)
Huckabee: 169 (AL, AR, GA, WV, TN)

Honestly, I am a little baffled by the results. Here are some of my observations from the night:

1. Why is Huckabee going after Romney and not McCain? You would think that Huckabee is more closely aligned with Romney on issues than McCain and would at least fight McCain on principle as well as the fact that McCain is the front runner. That leads me to conclude 1) Huckabee is really not as conservative as he would like us to believe or 2) Huckabee and McCain are striking some type of deal where Huckabee will be the V.P. candidate.

2. Michele McGinty over at Reformed Chicks Babbling perfectly summed up my next observation,

"Turn out has been much greater for the Democrats than for the Republicans. I don't think we're that happy with our choice. None of these candidates are fully conservative and each appeal only to a segment of the base. None of them will be able to make the party coalesce around them in the fall. If the base does coalesce, it will be for other reasons (to beat Hillary, the war, etc.), not because we want any of these guys as our president."

3. I read that 70% of Democrats would be happy with either Clinton or Obama as their nominee. So that makes the next question which one of them would be more likely to defeat the Repulican ticket?

4. Or, is the real question who is America ready to have as President---a woman or an African-American? That question gets a little more complicated when you take into account these facts from John Judis at The New Republic:

• Clinton lost among blacks, but she should be able to win back those voters in November.
• In California, Clinton lost white men by a whopping 52 to 34 percent.
• She lost white independents by 58 to 30 percent.
• In California, 6.5 percent of those voters who didn’t vote for Clinton said that gender of the candidate was “an important factor.” One must assume that the actual percentage is higher (voters don’t like to admit to prejudice) and that any of those voters who would not want to vote for a woman, but who potentially could vote for a Democrat, did not vote at all in the primaries, but will be around in the general election.

and

• Obama had trouble with white working-class voters. In New Jersey, which a Democrat pretty much will have to win in November, Obama won only 31 percent of the white vote.
• Over 11 percent of those who voted against Obama (a group that might also include some Latinos) said that race was an important factor in their vote.
• Here, too, one must assume that the actual percentage is higher and that it would be even higher among voters in a general election.
• Democrats can win a state like Connecticut without winning these voters, but it won’t win most of the big Middle Atlantic and Midwestern states without them.

These races are far from over and it looks like states with late primaries may actually decide the nominees. I even saw one pundit suggest that the Democratic nominee won't be selected until the convention in August when the more than 800 super delegates get to vote.

Despite what side of the fence you sit on, it looks like we have a horse race!

Super Tuesday Results

http://politics4moms.blogspot.com/2008/02/super-tuesday-results.html