The Long, Hard Slog

On Super Tuesday, John McCain thrust towards the Republican nomination while Hillary Clinton battled Barack Obama as 24 states voted to help select the nation's 44th president.

Both McCain and Clinton won California, the largest prize of the night.

In the Republican contest, McCain won the delegate count, winning the Northeast handily--a reflection of his popularity with moderates and his inheriting the support of Rudy Giuliani in the New York tristate area. In the South, he lost, not to Mitt Romney, the champion of right-wing radio, but to Mike Huckabee, another apostate who earned the wrath of the Limbaugh crowd. Romney never won below the Mason-Dixon line. Huckabee took Alabama and, as the evening moved on, Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee as well. McCain won Missouri, a key swing state in the fall. Romney did well in the Mountain West and the upper Midwest where he grabbed Minnesota and North Dakota.

Obama won more states than Clinton in an impressive, cross-country cavalcade that took him from the Atlantic to the Pacific. He took Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota and Utah. Clinton won her home state of New York but the former First Lady did better than many pundits anticipated given Obama's surge in the national polls. She fought off vigorous challenges from Obama in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Arizona and, above all, California while claiming the mid with Arkansas, Tennessee and Oklahoma.

Why? Clinton is holding fellow women (who vote in larger numbers than men) and dominating with Latinos and downscale whites. In California, she won Hispanics by 2 to one and 57 percent of women who constituted 55 percent of the Democratic electorate. In his home state of Illinois, Obama won only 52 percent of Hispanics. More downscale votes supported Clinton, too and that made all the difference in a state like Massachusetts where the political establishment rallied around Obama and in Tennessee and Oklahoma, too. A friend of mine joked that in Massachusetts, while Obama had Ted Kennedy, John Kerry and Deval Patrick, Clinton had the casts of "The Departed" and "The Verdict"--Southie Irish, working-class Worcester, Quincy.

Throughout the Democratic primaries one big question has been this: Would Obama break out of the Hart-Tsongas-Bradley mold of an elite reformer who couldn't get traction with the party's working-class base. The answer is yes. Obama is bigger than his predecessors because of his African American support and his effect on youth. He has built an organization that dwarfs those of his precursors, Bradley and Hart, who are, in fact, supporting Obama. But the first-term Senator still needs to penetrate the lunch-bucket base of the party to take the nomination. There's an expression that if you want to recognize a Clinton voter, look at her shoes. If she's on her feet all day--a teacher, a nurse, a waitress--she's for Clinton. That's not always true but it's true enough. (My spouse works for Clinton.)

That said, Obama's continued march in delegates--he might possibly win the night's numbers when it's all counted--shows that he can take this fight all the way to the convention in Denver this August. And given his mammoth fundraising he has more resources to win a protracted fight than Clinton. He won big in states with large African-American populations like Georgia and Alabama but also in states with small black populations like North Dakota and Utah. In Georgia, he won by a large margin and upped his numbers with white men suggesting an avenue to the nomination that would include, youth, the affluent, men and African Americans. Elsewhere in the country Clinton cobbled together older voters, white women, and Latinos into a winning coalition. Obama's weekend with Oprah and Maria Shriver wasn't enough to close the gap with women. He did well in caucus states like North Dakota and Kansas and Minnesota (his mother's home state) because of his popularity with party activists. But caucuses are not primaries.

Mitt Romney's bid to be the conservative alternative to McCain was stymied by Mike Huckabee who picked up victories in West Virginia and his home state of Arkansas as well as Georgia and Alabama where fellow evangelicals rallied around him. Romney had his moments. As the evening wore on, Massachusetts fell in line behind Romney as did Mormon-dominated Utah and Montana as well as Colorado completing the former Salt Lake City Olympics boss's sweep of the mountain west--a large geographic area but one lacking the delegate-rich troves he needs. The evening ended with reports that Romney would meet with aides in Boston tomorrow to discuss ending the campaign.

From now on, McCain is on a path to the nomination. Romney may hang on and so may Huckabee but neither is likely to unseat McCain barring some fantastic development. And indeed as long as Huckabee stays in, Romney can't be the sole conservative alternative to McCain.

Clinton and Obama will continue to slug it out. The scrum for delegates and the tug for superdelegates--politicians who are given seats but who can switch their allegiances--will continue. But the Clinton Collapse that many pundits predicted as polls showed Obama surging nationwide just didn't happen. Just as New Hampshire and Nevada prevented the Obama sweep after Iowa, tonight large, contested states like Massachusetts, California and New Jersey swung Clinton's way.

The next week should be good for Obama. He can put forces on the ground in Louisiana and Nebraska. The District of Columbia is heavily African American and Maryland has one of the largest African American populations of any state. Virginia is more fertile for Clinton but the state's Democratic governor is behind Obama. Louisiana should be good for Obama, too. Beyond that, Texas looks good for Clinton given her surge with Hispanics. Pennsylvania and Ohio will be pivotal. Meanwhile, Huckabee would be wise to pray for divine intervention