Gloomy Tuesday: The Not-So-Super Results of Super Tuesday
Published February 12, 2008
By Peter Salerno
Super Tuesday was one of the most exciting days of the year for political junkies like myself. In a twenty-four hour period you get to watch half of the nation vote for a candidate whom they hope will end up representing the Republican or Democratic party in the campaign for the presidency.
Thousands of delegates are at stake and millions of votes are cast. This Super Tuesday was better than most; it featured a Democratic race in which neither candidate could pull away with a convincing lead, and a Republican race in which one man distanced himself from the rest while another made a name for the small guy. All in all, this day did not decide the nominees; instead, it made the next three weeks that much more interesting.
On the Republican side the day’s big winner was Mike Huckabee. He has less money than every other campaign (either Democrat or Republican) and yet he won key states across the South primarily in the Bible belt. His surprising wins were Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama, which helped him become the feel-good story of the day. In an era that places so much emphasis on raising money for campaigns, Huckabee proved that it may still be about the issues and where you stand on them.
Next for Huckabee is more campaigning. He’s stated that he will not drop out of the race until a winner is crowned and the way he carries the conservative vote in the South could push him as leading candidate for Vice President.
In other news on the Republican side, John McCain struck huge victories across the U.S. on Super Tuesday. His wins in Missouri, New York, New Jersey, and California launched him into the status of frontrunner for the Republican nomination. The superstitious McCain even dared to use the term frontrunner to describe his chances for the first time during his campaign.
McCain will now turn his focus to the next primaries and caucuses, yet he has to be a little bit excited by the fact that it is all but won for him. One thing he may need to think about is a running mate, and with Mike Huckabee winning where McCain notoriously can’t this writer thinks that could be a good fit.
On the Democratic side of Super Tuesday the competition was intense. Hillary Clinton was having an average day until she locked up the democratic votes in California, the last state accounted for. This victory made her day a smiling success instead of a precursor of things to come. She also launched huge wins in New Jersey and Massachusetts.
The victory in her home state of New York also helped keep her slightly ahead in the delegate count. She scored wins in all the major states minus Missouri, yet she was unable to pull away from her competitor Barack Obama.
Up next for Hillary is fiercer campaigning in a tight race.
Her biggest problem is that she does not have as much funding for her campaign as her counterpart Barack does. Her advertising for the campaign will suffer because of this lack of funds. Advertising is the method which candidates rely on most for spreading their message. Hillary has been clear about one thing though; she wants more one-on-one debates with Barack because this will give her national airtime for free. She wants one debate a week for the rest of the campaign. Although she had won every debate with Barack thus far, last Thursday night Barack proved to be a new victor at the debate podiums.
Barack Obama’s campaign scored a sure victory on Super Tuesday with wins in every corner of the nation. He carried more states than his counterpart Hillary Clinton by winning 13 out of the 22 states voting. His message was to remain less than one hundred delegates behind Hillary and after the count he was only eighty-two back. Barack secured key victories in states such as Missouri, Minnesota, and Connecticut. Also included in his victories was a landslide win in his home state of Illinois.
He is once again showing that his campaign is a movement throughout the nation, gaining funding from the bottom up, taking no money from lobbyists. His funds are immense compared to the Clinton campaign and this better prepares him for wins in the upcoming weeks. He has begun to get more specific on his plans for change making him not only an emotional speaker but a literal one as well.
Barack is poised to make a run for the nomination behind a huge following of donators and participators. Clearly, his zest for change has spread across the nation with wins in states from Delaware to Alaska and Missouri to Idaho as proof.
Super Tuesday did not decide the winners of either party, but with a record number of voters making it to the polls it shows how much every American has riding on this election. The next three weeks hold very interesting races on both sides of the ticket, yet it seems to be all but over in the Republican Camp. Stay tuned in for more results because it’s not just the future of the candidates at stake but rather the future of all Americans that will be decided.
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