Fight on, Democrats
The nomination battle is just beginning. How it ends is anyone's guess.
Of all the wild scenarios spun out for the 2008 presidential campaign, perhaps the least likely was the one we face: a Republican contest that was effectively over the morning after Super Tuesday, and a Democratic cage match that could go on and on and on -- all the way to a tumultuous and unpredictable convention in August.
I, for instance, offered an unconventional convention scenario (on these pages) back in July, noting that the uniquely early start (called "front loading") of the primary process, combined with the compressed schedule, could provide a formula for an extended, pitched battle, with no candidate getting close to a majority after Super Tuesday. But I made it clear that this was more likely to happen on the Republican side, where many plausible candidates were running against one another and none seemed to be getting more than tepid support.
The Democrats, on the other hand, already had a front-running candidate, highly regarded by most Democratic partisans, and an enthusiastic electorate that wanted to pick a nominee and get on with the big battle -- ending the Bush era once and for all.
Oops. Wrong again. Despite a near-collapse of his candidacy in the summer, and despite Rush Limbaugh-led opposition from a core group of right-wing nabobs of negativism, John McCain stayed standing as such highly touted candidates as Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson faltered. McCain emerged intact and strong heading into Super Tuesday, won all the big winner-take-all states and nearly swept California as well. McCain will wind up this week with about two-thirds of the delegates needed to clinch a nomination, with his major rival, Mitt Romney, gone from the race and with his new chief opponent, Mike Huckabee, saddled with a narrow, regional base. Already, the core conservative establishment of the party is closing ranks behind McCain.
The Democratic Party's process, meanwhile, successfully winnowed its field quickly and ruthlessly to two candidates -- but is now left, paradoxically, with the most evenly divided, strong and impressive duo in modern history. Their results at this point are eerily similar. When the dust has settled from Super Tuesday, Obama and Clinton will not be far apart in delegates. Despite winning very different kinds of states, their nationwide vote totals on Super Tuesday were virtually identical as well.
