WSJ-Tuesday Night Lights

Online Wall Street Journal online gives a review and outlook on Super Tuesday.

"So much for the best laid plans of Terry McAuliffe. The former Democratic Party chairman helped to design the first national Presidential primary in the expectation that its sheer expanse would sink any challenger to Hillary Clinton. Instead, the most important result from Super Tuesday is that Barack Obama showed how broad his appeal to Democratic voters really is." Read the rest here.

It was nice to see my link to my blog there as well as on CNN.

Obama on Fire

The Obama and Hillary Battle is close. If anyone thought it was a given for Hillary in winning the nomination, they were sadly mistaken. CNN reports the total number of delegates to get the party's nod is 2025 delegates. Hillary after Super Tuesday is leading with 823 to Obama's 731. Amazing. Obama's first time out of the box, compared to John Edwards second run, is less than 100 delegates away from taking the lead from the well branded second Bill Clinton.

According to CNN, on Super Tuesday, the votes were spit 582 for Clinton and 562 for Obama. Talk about closing the gap, Hillary captured only 20 more delegates than Obama. And this was after Edwards dropped out of the race !!!

The next round of caucuses should have Hillary's fan worried. On Super Tuesday Obama won 13 states and Hillary won only 8. This means the closet Obamaholics must stand front and center in supporting a victory for Obama. According to CNN, althought Obama lost both California and New York, money is on his side. Four states hold contests this weekend; three other races set for next Tuesday

"Heading into the next states ... Barack Obama has a money advantage," Borger said. "And now Hillary Clinton wants to debate every single week because she doesn't have the money to compete with him for paid media. I think we'll be seeing a lot more Obama and Hillary Clinton one-on-one."

The Democratic campaigns now turn their attention to the Louisiana primary and Nebraska and Washington caucuses Saturday, the Maine caucuses Sunday and the so-called Potomac primaries in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia next Tuesday.

The candidates also have circled February 19 when Wisconsin holds its primary, March 4 when voters in Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas and Vermont head to the polls, and April 22 in Pennsylvania.

While failing to win the biggest prizes of California and New York, Obama should see many positive trends in the Super Tuesday results as he battles Clinton, the presumptive nominee a few months ago."


For those folks who doubted Obama ability to win, it appears Obama is in it to win.

Sweet Georgia! Obama Wins!

Read the story by David Espo, special correspondent:

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama won the Georgia primary Tuesday night, the leading edge of a coast-to-coast struggle with Hillary Rodham Clinton for delegates in the grueling Democratic presidential campaign. Arizona Sen. John McCain challenged his remaining rivals for control of the Republican race.



It was Obama's second straight Southern triumph, and like an earlier victory in South Carolina, was built on a wave of black votes.

The Associated Press made its call based on surveys of voters as they left the polls.

The 87 delegates at stake in Georgia's primary were divided between the two candidates in rough proportion to the votes.

After an early series of low-delegate, single-state contests, Super Tuesday was anything but — its primaries and caucuses were spread across nearly half the country in the most wide-open presidential campaign in memory.

Overall, Clinton was winning only a slight edge among women and white voters, both groups that she has won handily in earlier contests, according to preliminary results from interviews with voters in 16 states leaving polling places. Obama was collecting the overwhelming majority of votes cast by blacks, and Clinton was gaining the votes of roughly six in 10 Hispanics.

In Georgia, blacks cast slightly more than half the votes, and Obama was winning nearly a 90 percent share of those. Clinton was supported by nearly six in 10 white voters, according to the exit polls.

In the GOP race, McCain had a small edge among voters calling themselves Republicans, a group he had not won in any of the earlier races. As usual, he was running strongly among independents. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was getting the votes of about four in 10 people who described themselves as conservative. McCain was wining about one-third of that group, and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee about one in five.

Democrats and Republicans alike said the economy was their most important issue. Democrats said the war in Iraq ranked second and health care third. Republican primary voters said immigration was second most important after the economy, followed by the war in Iraq.

The survey was conducted in 16 states by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International for The Associated Press and television networks.

McCain was the Republican front-runner, all but unchallenged in winner-take-all primaries in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. He looked for a home-state win in Arizona, as well.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, struggling to sustain his candidacy, concentrated on Missouri and California as well as several caucus states.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee concentrated on a swath of Southern and border states. Texas Rep. Ron Paul had the fourth spot on the ballot.

In the first contest decided Tuesday, Huckabee won all 18 delegates at the West Virginia GOP convention after McCain's supporters sided with him in a successful attempt to deprive Romney of a victory.

Democrats Obama and Clinton conceded in advance that neither was likely to emerge from the busiest day in primary history with anything more than a relatively narrow edge in convention delegates.

"Senator Clinton, I think, has to be the prohibitive favorite going in given her name recognition, but we've been steadily chipping away," said Obama, seeking to downplay expectations.

As she voted in Chappaqua, N.Y., Clinton said, "The stakes are huge."

Her aides conceded in advance that Obama might win more Super Tuesday delegates than the former first lady.

Already, both campaigns were looking ahead to Feb. 9 contests in Louisiana, Nebraska and Washington state and Feb. 12 primaries in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia. And increasingly, it looked like the Democrats' historic race between a woman and a black man would go into early spring, possibly longer.

Democrats had 1,681 Super Tuesday delegates to allocate in primaries in 15 states and caucuses in seven more plus American Samoa.

Clinton led Obama in the delegate chase as the polls opened, 261 to 202, on the strength of so-called superdelegates. They are members of Congress and other party leaders, not chosen by primary voters or caucus-goers. It takes 2,025 delegates to win the Democratic nomination.

Republicans had 1,023 delegates at stake in 15 primaries, six caucuses and one state convention.

The evening began with McCain holding 102 delegates, to 93 for Romney, 43 for Huckabee and four for Paul. It takes 1,191 to win the Republican nomination.

The de facto national primary was the culmination of a relentless campaign that moved into overdrive during Christmas week.

After a brief rest for the holiday, the candidates flew back to Iowa on Dec. 26 for a final stretch of campaigning before the state's caucuses offered the first test of the election year. New Hampshire's traditional first-in-the-nation primary followed a few days later, then a seemingly endless series of campaign days interspersed by debates and a handful of primaries and caucuses.

Along the way, the poorest performers dropped out: Democratic Sens. Joe Biden and Chris Dodd, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio; and Republican Reps. Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo, and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson.

Former Sen. John Edwards pulled out of the Democratic race last week, and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani left the Republican field.

Edwards offered no endorsement as he exited, instead leaving Obama and Clinton to vie for help from his fundraisers and supporters.

But Obama benefited from an endorsement by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who made a series of campaign appearances in California as well as his home state of Massachusetts.

Giuliani quit the race and backed McCain in the same breath, clearing the way for the Westerner in New York and New Jersey.

Giuliani's departure also made it possible for California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to back McCain. Schwarzenegger said he would not have done so as long as the former mayor was in the race.

Obama and Clinton spent an estimated $20 million combined to advertise on television in the Feb 5 states.

Obama spent $11 million, running ads in 18 of the 22 states with Democratic contests. Clinton ran ads in 17, for a total of $9 million.

Neither advertised in Illinois, Obama's home state.

Super Tuesday ---Afrosphere blogging and talking

Below you will find Dallas South Live Blogging




Tips for Readers

There’s nothing to do during a live blog other than read, watch and occasionally send in a comment or vote in the polling questions.

It’s not a chatroom. You go to largely find out what the writer has to say. An open chat with thirty or more readers turns into poor, disjointed content very quickly.

Your comments are published at the writer’s discretion. They see everything sent to them but only they can publish your comments for everyone to see.
Our ‘autoscroll’ feature ensures you’re always shown the newest content without having to refresh or scroll your screen. You can toggle this on or off by using the controls at the bottom of the live blog.

Subtle sound effects alert you to new content as the writer publishes it. This can also be toggled on or off as you like.

Viewers will be able to comment as things happen throughout the
evening. The live blog will start at 8 PM. If not, stop by Dallas South
and check us out. We'll stay on as long as we have to. Hope to see you
there.


And for you Blog talk radio listeners:

1. africanamericanpoliticalpundit blog talk radio
Blog Name: aapoliticalpundit.blogspot.com
Time of your live event:* 2/5/2008 11:00 PM E.T.*
Short description of what will be happening. *Super Tuesday Rap Up with
African American Political. Call-in Number: (718) 508-9867 if your service

2. whataboutourdaughters blog talk radio
whataboutourdaughters
we are podcasting live from 8:30PM to 10:30PM CST and I would
like to give a shout out the WAOD Podcast -one of the most popular
political podcasts on Blog Talk Radio (according to them). The call
in number is (646) 478-4750