Super Tuesday II

Super Tuesday Two: Texas and Ohio
By Jay R. Hagerman
Tursday March 13, 2008

As I stated in previous articles, I knew that Hilary Clinton would win the much needed states of Ohio and Texas in the March 4th Primary. This was a heavily desired boost in her campaign and for the time being, may have brunted the powerful Obama hurricane of enthusiasm. Clinton managed to win three of the four contested states on March 4th gaining Rhode Island in addition to Ohio and Texas. Obama won the most liberal state in the union, Vermont. This victory did not put Clinton ahead in the delegate count but has given her a chance. She is still behind Obama by about 100 or so delegates. Fox News and the Associated Press report Clinton with 1468 delegates and Obama with 1578. The Democratic nominee needs 2025 to gain the party nomination. On the other side of the aisle, John McCain won all four of the March 4th primary states and gained over the 1191 delegates needed to get the Republican nomination. Mike Huckabee suspended his campaign and pledged to help McCain in any way he could. The question remains has anything changed? McCain is now the heir instead of the heir apparent and Obama is still in the delegate lead, so it would seem not. Although the status quo seems to be maintained as of late, there are far more underlying implications about the race for the White House that are now going to emerge.
On the Republican side, John McCain gains a huge advantage with gaining the ability to fully transfer his campaign into a national fundraising machine. The Republican National Committee had pledged about $25 million dollars in aiding McCain as best as legally possible. The limits of campaign fundraising arise from the reform act called the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act (BCRA) that colloquially bears his name, McCain-Feingold. In any case, John McCain can now trounce around the wealthiest and most conservative parts of the country gaining money and support for his crusade against the left. The left is still in a horse race for their own nomination. Clinton is not finished at all, as I previously stated. She knows she will lose the Mississippi Primary on March 11th so her best bet would be to go straight to Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Primary is on Tuesday April 22nd and in my opinion, will go for Clinton. Ohio and Pennsylvania are very similar states. They all have a blue collar, rust belt state mentality. Clinton trounced Obama with a 10 point win in Ohio and one of Clinton’s biggest surrogates, Pennsylvania’s Governor Ed Rendell, is already talking her up in the Keystone State. She needs to keep a consistent message with the citizens of Pennsylvania because it obviously worked in Ohio. If Clinton were smart she would focus all of her campaign war chest on two states, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, where I think she can win. In any case, I think that neither Democratic candidate can win the party’s nomination with the outright 2025 delegates. It will ultimately come down to the 700 or so super delegates designed by the Democratic Party to be, by definition, above the elected delegate. For the first time in 30 years a nominating convention may actually be exciting to watch.
There are two outcomes for the Democratic Party if there is a brokered convention, which I ultimately believe there will be. Either the fight is so vicious that the party is fractured and the Democrats, once again manage to emerge with defeat from the jaws of victory, or, on the contrary, a ticket could be devised that would be an ‘all-star’ ticket. I believe this is highly unlikely due to the pompousness of both candidates and how vicious their campaigns have been toward each other thus far. The winner ultimately could be John McCain and the Republicans. The best thing he can do is raise as much money as he can because when the Democrats reorient themselves after these many months of confusion, they will attack incessantly and unmercifully.