Huge stakes shape Super Tuesday
The Democratic candidates hedge their bets on predicting today's outcome as the top Republicans fiercely debate conservative credentials.
In New Orleans, residents are celebrating Fat Tuesday. Almost everywhere else, it's Super Tuesday.
Voters are streaming to the polls or attending caucuses today in 24 states coast to coast in what amounts to the nation's first national presidential primary. California, which moved up its primary from the traditional June date, is poised to play a pivotal role in choosing the next president for the first time in decades.
Both Democratic candidates tamped down expectations about tonight's results, predicting a long fight to the convention during appearances on morning TV talk shows.
"This is an amazing day, because we've never done this before," New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said. "We're all kind of guessing about what it's all going to mean because it's never happened before."
Clinton voted this morning at a precinct near her home in Chappaqua, N.Y. Joined by former President Bill Clinton and daughter Chelsea, the senator approached the clerk, and election worker Evan Norris jokingly asked her if she was a Democrat. Clinton smiled before collecting her ballot.
"I am just very excited about today," she said. "The stakes are huge."
Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, predicting "a split decision," woke up in Massachusetts, once a stronghold of Clinton's but now in play in part because of his endorsement by home-state Sen. Edward Kennedy. Then he flew back home to Chicago to cast his ballot and hold an election-night rally.
"Right now we're in a pretty fierce contest," Obama said, when asked if he would consider the vice presidency. "We're getting way too far ahead of ourselves when we talk about vice presidential candidacies. I can tell you that's not something I'm running for."
Republicans spent the day in a ferocious debate over which of them is the most conservative, the true heir to the mantle of Ronald Reagan.
Starting the day at a 7:30 a.m. rally at Rockefeller Center in New York, Arizona Sen. John McCain predicted victory.
"We're going to win today, and we're going to win the nomination, and we're going to win the presidency," he said, before heading to San Diego for a get-out-the-vote rally this afternoon and later to Arizona to watch the returns at home tonight.
