The Super Tuesday Snore
So, Super Tuesday came and went – and if you were paying attention on Monday or any day before, the results shouldn’t have been all that surprising.
On the Republican side, since so many of their primary/caucus are Winner Take All or Winner Take Most, it led to a delegate surge by John McCain. Had their system been similar to the Democrats, Mitt Romney wouldn’t have been forced to drop out of the race today.
(While we’re at it, good fucking riddance. I honestly thought that he was the least offensive GOP candidate in the mix, but his supposed reason for leaving?
"If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Sens. Clinton or [Barack] Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign, be a part of aiding a surrender to terror," Mr. Romney planned to say in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Good riddance, douchebag. Glad you spent about $40 million of your own money to be a loser.
(Deep breath.)
Moving on, it became equally clear that despite the huge number of contests, Super Tuesday wasn’t going to solve anything for the Democrats, as a two-person race meant that the delegates – awarded in a seemingly purposefully confusing system – were going to be essentially shared. (How it would have looked with John Edwards still in the race is an interesting question I can’t answer.) Each side came out of the contest claiming victory, and both were justified.
What happens from here seems hard to predict, though of course that won’t stop me from giving it a shot. Much attention has been made of Hillary Clinton’s funding problems, which is a sentence I have difficulty time writing, let alone believing. That being said, she did loan her campaign money from her own pocket, and some of her staffers are working for free – and there’s simply no way that’s a GOOD thing. Barack Obama, on the other hand, not only outraised HRC by $19 MILLION in January ($32MM to $13MM), but looks poised for another $30MM month. So financially, he’s got a clear advantage.
He also seems – seems being the key word – to have an advantage in the next few races, though they come replete with small amounts of delegates. If he dominates those in a South Carolina kind of way, then the landscape could change – but in reality, I don’t see anything being resolved anytime soon. I don’t think that changes even if Al Gore and John Edwards endorse – but then again, what do I know?