Super Duper Tuesday and Beyond...

After having a pretty heavy political week of my own, I was happy to let all the Super Tuesday stuff go by without much of my attention yesterday. However, i'll give you my take. If you didn't know already, the way Democrats and Republicans hand out delegates in a primary vary, even within the same state. Many, but not all, of the GOP primaries are "All or Nothing", meaning you win, you get all of the delegates. Second place gets nothing. The Democrats split up the state's delegates to first and second (generally) if the 2nd place voter reaches a given threshold. With Hillary and Obama winning different states, this left us roughly tied. actually it gave Hillary more by popular vote and Obama more by delegate count. under this system you can have a smaller gap of delegates awarded to the 1st and 2nd place candidates in California than you do for the same candidates in Puerto Rico!!! I'm not going to get into "super delegates" and what that means here until it actually begins to mean something.

After Super Tuesdsay, the GOP found itself a 2 man race. Sorry Ron Paul, it is now mathematically impossible for you to win. Everyone, me included, said it was all over and McCain would beat Huckabee for the nomination. The GOP elite seem to hate these too guys so much that they don't know what to do with themselves. meanwhile we get a few more states into the mix...and Huckabee wins them ALL! In the South. the Midwest. and the West.

You may be thinking "Now wait a minute Polly! I saw McCain won Washington. it wasn't a sweep!" and it SEEMS that way (and maybe it will be that way in the end), but you should know this and sit in disbelief that this has made no press. in Washington state, with 13% of the vote left to count, the race was neck and neck for McCain/Huckabee. Literally seperated by 1.8%!. so what does the chair of the GOP (Luke Esser) in Washington do? HE HAD A GUT FEELING THAT McCAIN WOULD WIN AND CUT OFF THE COUNTING OF THE VOTES!! seriously. It seemed that the 30 point lead McCain had before has evaporated and the fix needed to go in to handle the situation. Huckabee wasn't too happy, as you can imagine.

Well that's the sorta stuff you get over there. on the Democratic side, Obama cleaned Hillary's clock. now he was expected to win these states, partly bc he fares better in Caucus states than she does. He's done well in poorer states, states with larger black populations, and whiter states with higher income residents. Hillary has done well in the middle and much better with Latinos. it was a rout. she had to cough up $5 million of her own dough and ask staff to give up paychecks for a while. on top of that, she ditches her campaign leadership. not good signs and no good PR going into the "Potomac Primary" of Virginia, DC, and Maryland. Her best chance (same with huckabee) will be in Virginia. the rest should go Obama. If he sweeps here, she will be in contention, but certainly down in the delegate count and will have no chance of moving ahead in the race until March. a long time to stop a free fall.

I was very worried Obama wasn't going to be able to pull this out in the end. I'll be very positive on his chances if he sweeps again tonite...and that seems to be the word on the street.