Super Tuesday Fizzles

Many years ago; unfortunately not so many that I can't remember; there was no "Super Tuesday" primary races. Primaries were scatter from hell to breakfast, so to speak, starting in January and running meaningfully through late April. However, the parties didn't really like that, as they didn't get a presumptive nominee until pretty late in the game, especially when they had to run against an incumbent. Instead of concentrating on the other camp's candidates, they were having to argue with and beat up those in their own party.

Super Tuesday was supposed to be the solution, a big enough block of states, including 4 of the big ones, California, New York, New Jersey, and Illinois. A day big enough to make the nominee known, so that money could be spent on fighting the enemy, not one's own family.

Yesterday, however, fizzled as far as Super Tuesday's go, especially for the democrats. Instead of coming out with a presumptive nominee, they have a dead heat, and a lot of primaries to go, and the possibility of going to the convention without a clear cut winner.

For the GOP the far right isn't happy, John McCain has built a pretty close to insurmountable lead, especially with Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee splitting the vote of those who don't support McCain. While both of the others have said they are sticking around, it won't be easy to raise the gobs of cash needed to keep going with McCain holding better than a 2-1 delegate lead over both of them.

One interesting number, to me, came out of yesterday, it was the numbers on independent voters in the GOP contests. Nearly 70% of them went for McCain. While a lot of the talking heads are pointing to his less than 40% of self id'd conservatives voting for McCain the independent number is as big, or bigger. You can't win general elections without getting independents to listen to you. McCain seems to be able to do that much better than either other candidate in that race.