Time to Spin

Super Tuesday is over and at least for Democrats, nothing has been decided. Hillary won the biggest states (minus Illinois), but Obama won more states. Hillary's camp is trying to spin a couple of races as upset victories for her, but the reality is that she had built in advantages in all of the states and was leading by large margins. Obama has won 13 states, with one left to finish counting and at least at last count they were neck and neck in New Mexico -- separated by less than 200 votes. Obama won: Minnesota, Illinois, Delaware, Missouri, Connecticut, Alabama, Georgia, Kansas, North Dakota, Alaska, Idaho, Colorado, and Utah. Note that Obama has nearly swept the intermountain west.

California, didn't go as well as we'd hoped, but he did win my county!! Hillary will try to spin that as beating back the Obama surge, but I think a close look at things will demonstrate several factors: 1) she won more of the vote by mail folks, many of whom voted early in January after New Hampshire; 2) she won Hispanics, which was expected, 3) there was a signficant number of Edwards voters who voted early. It's quite possible that the polls reflected a mood that included Edwards voters moving toward Obama -- but unfortunately a sizable number had already voted.

So, what do we know. John McCain will be the GOP candidate. It will be interesting to see who he picks as a running mate. James Dobson says he's staying home -- how many of his followers will do the same? McCain will try to make up with the Conservative base, but in doing so will he lose the moderate middle?

On the Democratic side, we have two strong candidates running full steam ahead. Most pundits said that Obama would be in good shape if he could stay within a hundred or so delegates. It looks like he's in that range. Many of the states ahead favor Obama. They're 2-3 at a time, he has a huge war chest after a record $32 million haul in January. So, he can go after Louisiana on Saturday (a state that could favor him, especially with Edwards gone), then Maryland, DC, and Virginia after that. It looks like Hillary is looking at Ohio and Texas as firewalls. Obama needs to win one of those two. If he could do well in Texas among Hispanic voters, which he has time to work on, he could if not win Texas at least do well.

Then the Superdelegates who remain uncommitted will have to decide what to do. My sense is that many will start looking to November and think about who can do best. I, of course, beleive it's Obama. Nothing gets Right-Wingers into a frenzy more than the Clintons. So, stay tuned, because things are going to get very interesting.