Primary Elections

John Edwards has heard the question for nearly a month from cable television correspondents, national newspaper reporters and small-town scribes. On this night in southwestern Missouri, it comes after a rally at a Teamsters hall, where the Democratic presidential candidate has just brought union workers, teachers and farmers to their feet, shouting in affirmation.

Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul has a couple of things going for him at this weekend's Republican caucuses: a band of highly motivated supporters and a natural appeal to Maine's like-minded independents. His stop in the state earlier this week also made him the only presidential contender from either party to visit before the caucuses. "I think that [because] he's paid attention to Maine, he'll be rewarded," R. Kenneth Lindell, Paul's campaign coordinator in Maine, said Thursday.

The day after Republican presidential candidate John McCain won the Florida primary, Scott Raab's phone was buzzing. Raab, leader of McCain's campaign in Kern County, was peppered with requests for yard signs, bumper stickers, campaign buttons -- the essential, eye-grabbing swag of neighborhood campaigning. But he didn't have any, despite his monthlong plea to the national campaign for supplies.

The first meaningful California presidential primary campaign in decades swirled to a close with a final round of candidate appeals, advertisements, mailers and door-knocking -- and a boatload of uncertainty over exactly when the outcome will be decided.

They should own this state's primary on Tuesday, but Hillary Rodham Clinton and Mike Huckabee have turned up to campaign among old friends in Arkansas in recent days, returning out of political caution and a recognition that even local favorites have enemies. Arkansas' prizes -- 35 Democratic delegates and 31 Republican delegates are at stake this week -- hardly compare with the riches of New York or California or other Super Tuesday states.

A voracious appetite for political news has prompted the broadcast television networks and their cable counterparts to gear up for extensive coverage of Super Tuesday, offering programming more typical of a presidential general election than a February primary day. "This dominates in ways that politics hasn't dominated since November of 2000, which was all politics all the time," said Phil Griffin, NBC News' senior vice president in charge of MSNBC.

Amanda Lynn, a salesclerk at the Far West Fungi mushroom shop, likes Sen. Barack Obama, but worries that the country isn't ready for an African American president. Investment banker Nicole Smith likes the idea of a female commander-in-chief but worries that Sen. Hillary Clinton's personal style may be too harsh. Andrew Cross, a biochemistry major at San Francisco State, likes both Democratic contenders but is waiting to talk to his politically savvy grandmother to hear her recommendation.

On the final day before the presidential campaign's biggest prize thus far, today's delegate-rich California primary, the candidates called on influential friends and legions of volunteers to rally their faithful one last time before the polls open. Republican candidate Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, made a quick stop in Long Beach on Monday night. Rival John McCain, the Arizona senator, planned to jet into San Diego today during a cross-county hopscotch.

Today -- Super Tuesday -- residents in 24 states and American Samoa will vote in the largest single day of balloting in the history of presidential primaries. Democratic and Republican candidates have spent days scrambling from California to New York, and in between, racing from tarmac to town hall meeting, staging rallies, conducting satellite interviews, filling the airwaves with ads and stuffing mailboxes with their targeted appeals.

Virginia and Libero Daniel made up their minds more than two weeks ago on whom they'd be supporting in California's presidential primary. So they marked their absentee ballots and mailed them in early. Both voted for Republican Rudolph W. Giuliani. And then the former New York mayor quit the race. "I felt like hell," Virginia Daniel, 80, said Monday, her vote already somewhere in the bowels of the Los Angeles County elections office.