Read the Times Online US elections blog
After the campaigning, the hype, the razzmatazz and the soundbites, Super Tuesday is all over - and we find that we’re pretty much where we were yesterday. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton remain locked in the closest of battles for the Democratic nomination, and John McCain is way out in front in the Republican race.
The blogosphere was abuzz with excitement at all of the twists and turns, with analysts taking a host of different angles and standpoints - some more conventional than others - on what it all meant.
Joe Sudbay, writing on AMERICAblog.com, claimed that Mr Obama was in the driving seat because of his campaign’s rapid momentum.
“Stretching out the calendar only helps Obama. He has been steadily catching up to Hillary in state after state, poll after poll - that’s why so many of today’s states were actually in play tonight, when most weren’t just a couple weeks ago. He has more money than Hillary,” he writes.
Advertisement
In the Huffington Post, however, Ari Melber claimed that the entire race was benefitting the Democratic Party and harming the Republicans because more than three million more Democratic voters turned out than Republican ones on Super Tuesday.
“Turnout in Missouri’s Democratic primary was a whopping 70% higher than the G.O.P. contest, for example, where Obama won by a point. The last time the state held two contested primaries, in 2000, Republicans beat Democratic turnout by 56%. If Super Tuesday settled anything, it flatly debunked the baseless (and supposedly altruistic) insider concern that a long race is automatically ‘bad’ for the Democratic Party.”
The New York Times’s Caucus blog hails the remarkable comeback of Mr McCain in the Republican race. “What a year it’s been for Senator John McCain. So far down last summer, his campaign in the deep deep sludge of trouble. And then, 101 town hall meetings in New Hampshire pulled him out of the abyss.”
But despite his clear lead over all Republican contenders, Dan Riehl at Riehl World View, argued that Mr McCain had little chance of winning the overall Presidential election - and that Ms Clinton looked favourite for the White House.
“It’s very hard to make the case that McCain will be anything other than a sacrificial lamb,” he wrote. “He’ll be weak in the Republican base states and isn’t exactly pulling Obama numbers in the Blue. Hello Clinton II? We can argue it all anyone wants. In my view, McCain is already toast.”
Advertisement
John B. Judis writing in the New Republic’s blog, The Plank, said that all the headline-makers’ campaigns were now showing weaknesses. “McCain blunted Mitt Romney’s challenge, but he failed consistently to win over conservative voters. Hillary Clinton won the big states she had to win, and arrested Barack Obama’s momentum, but she is going to have problems with white male voters. Obama is having trouble with white working-class voters and Latinos.”
But perhaps - with the outcome of last night’s extravaganza all-but inevitable - Christopher Orr, also writing in the New Republic, preferred to focus on something more... visually distracting.
“The woman (white, blonde, probably in her 40s) who was over Barack Obama’s left shoulder when he delivered the speech will likely garner him more votes than half of his vastly more high-profile surrogates - laughing, clapping, tearing up, obviously smitten (in the good way), she embodied the Obama phenomenon perfectly.”