No full stops on Tuesday

As presidential contender John McCain has repeatedly pointed out, February 5, or ‘Super Tuesday’ — when several state-level party elections for US presidential nominees were held — was the closest thing to a national primary that the United States had ever experienced. Yet given its unprecedented importance, Tuesday’s manic electoral exercises did little to winnow the presidential field, as in elections past.

The biggest surprise, possibly, was former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee’s strong showing. Huckabee swept the conservative, and mostly southern states of Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, West Virginia and his home state of Arkansas. The major loser from Huckabee’s unexpected performance was former governor Mitt Romney, who had hoped to secure the conservative vote in his bid for the White House. Romney had been calculating on several major victories over the more moderate McCain, including in California, but managed wins only in Minnesota, Utah, Colorado, North Dakota, Montana and his home state of Massachusetts. More critically to Romney, Huckabee took away enough conservative votes to grant victory in many key states to McCain, who cemented his status as Republican frontrunner.

Arizona senator McCain won the big states of New York, New Jersey, Illinois and California, along with other key states such as Missouri, where he benefited tremendously from Huckabee’s presence. McCain was also assisted by the Republicans’ winner-takes-all system, which enabled him to win all of a state’s delegates, despite garnering as little as one-third of the state’s vote. There is now an overwhelming likelihood that McCain will be crowned his party’s nominee at September’s national convention, especially if he were to win significant victories in a handful of subsequent primaries.

While Super Tuesday cleared up the Republican race to some degree — mostly by upending Romney’s campaign — the Democratic race was only muddled further. At the time of this writing, Senator Hillary Clinton, the former first lady, had been projected the winner in eight states, including the major delegate-rich states of New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and California. Her victory in Massachusetts was one of Tuesday’s biggest surprises, as her chief rival Barack Obama had received several high-level endorsements in that state, including those of Senators John Kerry and Edward Kennedy, and Governor Deval Patrick.

Despite these significant wins, Clinton’s control over the Democratic nomination remains far from secure, as Obama won an estimated 13 states, and the two were essentially tied in a 14th, New Mexico. However, most of Obama’s wins — with the exception of his home state of Illinois — were in smaller states with fewer delegates: his most significant victories were in Missouri, Georgia, Colorado, Minnesota and Connecticut. Yet his performance was credible enough for him to remain a major contender on the Democratic side.

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