Some good wins, but a shadow still lingers.
It wasn't "Super Tuesday" -- call it "Significant Saturday." Barack Obama won all the states in play: Louisiana, Nebraska and Washington, and he did so by sizable margins.
Barack Obama swept the trio of contests in the Democratic primaries yesterday, increasing his momentum and narrowing the delegate gap even further. The Clinton campaign tried to shrug off the losses as "expected", but with the Beltway contests of DC, Virginia, and Maryland coming on Tuesday, Hillary may not see another win for a while.
This gives Obama the lead before the superdelegates are considered, 908-877. Hillary has a 90-vote lead among the superdelegates, and it has become clear that the superdelegates will have to make the difference if the nomination is to be settled before the convention. This has already generated some anger and threats.
Barack Obama’s landslide victories in three mid-sized states Saturday suggest that he has the opportunity build a significant lead over Hillary Rodham Clinton among the locked-in “pledged” delegates before the candidates face off in the big battlegrounds of Ohio and Texas on March 4.
The results in Washington and Nebraska vindicated Obama’s strategy of preparing expensive efforts to organize votes after the Feb. 5 contests that many expected – wrongly — effectively to decide the race.
In squeezing every delegate out of the small and mid-sized states between now and March 4, and every dollar out of his supporters, Obama is hoping to build a head of steam this month that will make him unstoppable and will lure free-floating superdelegates to his camp.
Some of these people are still waiting in line to vote.
It's Super Tuesday night, and it looks to be a long one. The exit polls are showing some unexpected numbers for Barack Obama, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee. The delegate fight is still a pitched battle for John McCain and Hillary Clinton.
(Our own Joel Mathis is liveblogging from the Kansas caucus.)
But don't forget, there are some major primaries and caucuses ahead. And even as the returns start rolling in across the country Tuesday, the Republican and Democratic campaigns are looking ahead to contests in Washington, Nebraska, Virginia, Ohio and Texas. The strategizing has only just begun.
Share your thoughts about how the race is shaping up in your state, how you voted, what surprised you and what you think will happen next.
Fred Barnes marveled on Fox News about Huckabee possibly taking “five states! five states!” Barnes called it a “remarkable comeback.” Before anyone gets carried away with talk of a Huck resurgence, though, most of his victories are taking place in states that aren’t winner-take-all. Whatever delegates he picks up in Georgia, Alabama, etc., will be more than offset by his zero showings in NY and NJ and his weak showings in California, Illinois.
While Obama has clearly caught up to, and perhaps passed, Clinton in the battle for the nomination, they continue to have complementary strengths and weaknesses. To win in November, Obama is going to have do much much better among the white working class--one can assume that he would get Clinton's female voters just as she would get his African American voters. Clinton, on other hand, looks very shaky among white men. There remains a question, too, whether the young voters and independents who have flocked to Obama's banner would vote for her in the fall.
Former Army Specialist and Iraqi War vet Matthew Sepi in a Las Vegas courtroom in 2005. Sepi, who had sought treatment for post-traumatic stress, was charged in the murder of a Vegas woman.
Town by town across the country, headlines have been telling similar stories. Lakewood, Wash.: “Family Blames Iraq After Son Kills Wife.” Pierre, S.D.: “Soldier Charged With Murder Testifies About Postwar Stress.” Colorado Springs: “Iraq War Vets Suspected in Two Slayings, Crime Ring.” The New York Times found 121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan committed a killing in this country, or were charged with one, after their return from war. In many of those cases, combat trauma and the stress of deployment appear to have set the stage for a tragedy that was part destruction, part self-destruction.
Should the Defense Department be more vigilant about monitoring troops after they come home from battle?
I've got a suggestion for the editors of the Times: next time, why don't they undertake a research project to identify all murders and other forms of homicide committed (or allegedly committed -- no finding of guilt necessary!) by people who are, or recently have been, employed by newspaper companies? They could write a long article in which selected crimes allegedly committed by reporters, editors and typesetters are recounted in detail, accompanied by speculation about whether newspaper employment was a contributing factor in each case. No need to wonder whether reporters, editors and typesetters commit homicide at a rate any different from the rest of the population -- a single murder is too many!
A small army of veterans advocates is putting the finishing touches on what is believed to be the country’s first Veterans Court, where military veterans having problems adjusting to civilian life will get special attention. The goal is to intercept troubled veterans before they plunge further into an already overwhelmed criminal justice system, which lacks the resources to help them get their lives back on track.
“Rather than be reactionary, we thought if we could be proactive, we could design a system that would better serve our community, the veterans and their families,” said Buffalo City Court Judge Robert T. Russell Jr., who will preside over Veterans Court when it starts Tuesday.
