Play by Play Super Tuesday Recap

States called, GOP: McCain (CT, IL, NJ, DE, NY, OK, AZ, CA), Romney (MA, UT, ND, MN, CO, MT), Huckabee (WV, AR, AL, GA)
States called, Dem: Obama (GA, IL, DE, AL, ND, CT, CO, MO, UT, AK), Clinton (OK, AR, TN, NY, NJ, MA, AZ, CA)

3am: Last thought of the night will be on the California results, where Clinton is ahead 53% to 39% with 48% reporting. The counties where Obama is the strongest are reported much more rapidly than Clinton's strongholds. Marin County (55-39 Obama) is 98% in, and San Fransisco (52-44 Obama) is 78% in. In contrast, LA County (59-36 Clinton) is 36% in, and Clinton's margin there could force some good delegate splitting in even district delegates. McCain, on the other hand, is getting wins across the state, leaving little hope that Romney could win some many districts. McCain should get a big delegate lead in CA.
Meanwhile, with 47% of the vote reporting in NM, Clinton is back up by 900 votes!

2:25am: Clinton just sank in the caucus states, and that by itself likely cost her a delegate lead tonight. Look at Idaho for example, where Obama got 80% of a total of 20,000 voters (!). That means a 15-3 delegate lead for Barack. In Colorado, where Obama won 2:1 against Clinton, he gets a 13-6 delegate lead. As I already pointed out, Obama got a bigger edge in IL than Clinton did in NY, and that also is helping him offset Clinton's big leads in places like AR and MA.

1:45am: With 30% reporting in California, Clinton is up 53% to 37%. In the last state to have not been called, Obama is up by 400 votes in New Mexico, with 38% reporting.

12:50am: Chuck Todd's estimates of the delegates count paints a stunningly divided race. Counting estimates in New Mexico and California -- the only states in which the margins are not clear yet -- Todd gives 841 delegates to Obama, 837 for Clinton (+/- 10 for both candidates). The reason for this is Obama's massive victories in the caucus states that have given him a very comfortable lead. Clinton had to perform better in places like Minnesota and Kansas.
Overall, the Democratic race could hardly be more equally divided. Clinton did win some very important races -- California, Arizona, Massachusetts and New Jersey -- but Obama's victories in Connecticut, Alabama and Missouri are significant, especially when you consider that Obama held Clinton to smaller than expected margins in states like Tennessee.
Obama will emerge out of Super Tuesday with a pledged delegate lead, if you don't count Florida and Michigan. And expect those two states to soon become a very contentious issue that the DNC will have to deal with very quickly.

12:40am: Fox calls Missouri for Obama, an important win for the Illinois Senator. MSNBC invents a category, calling Obama the "apparent winner" without explaining how that differs from a call. McCaskill immediately says, "This is Middle America, this is not the far coast." She also feels the need to say that, "I don't agree with all of Senator Kennedy's policy positions" before praising Kennedy's endorsement...
Depending on how big Clinton wins California, Missouri should allow Obama to get the media to cover this as a tie. It is worth noting that his two most significant primary wins tonight (CT and MO) came in very small margins, and Obama has a bigger margin in Alabama.

Click here to continue reading OffTheBus contributor Daniel Nichanian's account of last night's votes on his blog Campaign Diaries.

Comments

[teedee]

All fine and good. But -- NOW can we (they) start reporting real news? If the media keeps up this feeding frenzy any longer, voters are going to be so turned off, suffer such voter fatigue, we'll be lucky if anybody votes in November at all! They really need to give us a break now! Any chance we can make that happen?

[user168]

ONLY THE DEAD HAVE SEEN THE END OF WAR

How many deaths will it take, 'till he knows that too many people have died?

“Hell is this Thing Called War”

“To be in war is to be in hell on Earth, captured by lunacy and bewilderment, panic, fear and unmatched levels of stress invading your body. Bullets whizzing by, helicopters flying low, machine gunning anything that moves… the smell of blood in the air, the odor of sweat and urine festering about, your heart palpitating thunderously, body parts strewn everywhere, pools of fly-infested blood lining the streets, the nauseatingly putrid stench of rotting death omnipresent, hundreds of mutilated bodies thrown about, the ravaged remains of a once vibrant city laying at your feet, your house destroyed, your family huddled in the corner of your most secure room, your children shaking, lying in a fetal position, hunger overcoming you, your belly hurting for food, your tongue and mouth desperate for water, your spirit eager for escape, your instincts telling you to survive, to hug your children and never let go. Welcome to Hell on Earth...”

Why did Hillary vote FOR WAR? Let them die... What children? Their lives aren’t mine to worry about... I have enough “Me” and “My Hillary Pocket” to worry about!

Oh where oh where were you tears when I needed you?

[wangmo]

Too bad that people can't see into the deeper levels of our problems and understand how it is and why it is that Hillary Clinton is the person who is capable of actually dealing hands on not only with all of our domestic problems, but also with the terrible problem of world wide terrorism. She is not a war-monger. She is clear-eyed on the fact that we are in grave danger and need to do all we can to rectify the
causes of the psychosis of terrorism, while also being ready if need be to strike to protect our Nation and our interests. She knows we must get our of Iraq and intends to withdraw troops starting in 60 days after she takes office. She is a far more capable leader than Barack, who essentially rides his wave of success by the energy of charisma, the cult of personality, our nation's subconscious sexism, and the fact that I can turn on CNN or MSNBC and see Barack talking talking talking, special interviews by Wolf and others, day after day, with nothing at all of face time with Hillary Clinton, only short comments about her from the pundits. This blocking Hillary out from the public while piling on Barack attention hour after hour is the subliminal propaganda technique of making viewers assume that Barack is more important than Hillary.

Hillary Clinton's great command of leadership that benefits us all, is being railroaded out of public awareness by the Media who obviously has made their choice. I wonder why General Electric, the big corporation owning the Media, doesn't want Hillary Clinton as our next leader? Is it possible that she is an obstacle to the agenda of the Corporatocracy that is bent on the continuous Neocon one party goal of PNAC and the One World Order? Is it that Neocons have decided that Barack is the more mallable candidate for manipulation into their agendas, or more vulnerable to the character-attacks and can thereby be swiftly made ineffectual because of outrage at fighting the slander machines of the reichwing?