SUPER TUESDAY: WHAT TO MAKE OF TONIGHT'S RESULTS !

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Super Tuesday: What to make of tonight's results

By Adam NagourneyNew York Times
Article Launched: 02/05/2008 01:30:37 AM PST

Brace yourself.

Forty-three presidential nominating contests in 24 states. Channel upon channel of the commentators talking about exit polls.

The biggest prize of the night - California - being decided after many of the nation's viewers have headed for bed.

A total of 3,156 delegates allocated under arcane rules on what could be the most significant night of the 2008 campaign to date.

This is a guide of things to look for tonight - key states, trends, interesting demographic developments, campaign-ending or -extending developments - starting from when the first polls close (Georgia at 4 p.m. PST) to when the voting is completed in California at 8 p.m.



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The big picture

There are two ways to approach the results. The first is old-fashioned: which candidates rack up the most states. But this is about more than popular vote totals; the point of these contests is to allocate delegates to the national conventions.

Thus, the big question is how much attention to pay to the results map on TV - lighted up with, say, states that have swung to Sen. John McCain's column - and how much attention to pay to the delegate counter.

The answer is pay attention to both, though put somewhat more focus on states for the Republicans and put somewhat more attention on delegates for the Democrats.

The delegate count might matter more officially, but the state results could count more politically - and that will be the centraltension of the night.

Democrats allocate most of their delegates proportionally; candidates are awarded a cut of the delegate pie based on their percentage of the vote.

It is likely that the losing candidate still will get a substantial share of the delegates.

Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton will no doubt start claiming state victories as soon they can, with the goal of trying to get on TV and grab the front-runner spotlight - but those results probably will remain largely symbolic.

Assuming the race remains close, what matters going forward is who gets the most pledged delegates.

Delegate selection rules are different for Republicans.

In eight of the 21 Republican contests, the winner gets the delegates - no dividing up the spoils.

What that means is that it is going to be easy for a candidate to build up a big delegate lead tonight and, combined with winning some big states, credibly declare himself the party's presumptive nominee.

That is precisely what McCain is looking to do.

Keep in mind that the winner of the states probably is going to become known well before the delegate counts are finished, and that is going to color the way the results are reported on TV and in newspapers.

The outcome in California, the biggest prize of the night and a major factor in either way of judging the night, is not going to be known until the wee hours.

"Don't be rushed into making an early judgment without California," said Robert Shrum, a Democratic political analyst.

"You have to resist the pre-California spin unless someone is winning, like, 16 of the 22 states."


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The states


For Republicans, two states could end up determining whether the race goes on from here:

California and Massachusetts, and this has nothing to do with delegates.

Mitt Romney headed to California on a last-minute trip Monday, drawn by polls suggesting the race was narrowing, despite McCain's collection of high-profile endorsements, including from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

If Romney pulls out a win in the nation's largest state, no matter what happens anyplace else, he is unlikely to leave the stage soon.

By contrast, McCain - in a poke-in-the-eye moment - campaigned in Massachusetts, Romney's home state.

Should McCain win in Massachusetts and hold on to California, that probably would be the lights-out moment at the Romney headquarters.

No wonder that McCain sneaked a last-minute trip to San Diego onto his schedule for this morning.

For Democrats, watch California, Massachusetts, New York, Missouri, Arizona and New Mexico.

If Obama wins California, that is a real momentum-blocker for Clinton.

There are few states in the country that are more identified with the Clinton presidency than this one.

But Obama has suffered one of those external political problems that often madden campaigns:

A last-minute California poll showed him closing in on Clinton - and in the process, raised expectations that he will win. No wonder Obama's advisers suddenly are talking about the big surge of early voting in California before Obama began to break through.

If Obama wins Massachusetts, that will be testimony to the power of Sen. Ted Kennedy, and a real sting for Clinton, who once thought she had a comfortable lead there.

If Obama comes close in New York, or in neighboring New Jersey, watch for a tough round of questions about Clinton's electability.

Finally, think of Missouri, Arizona and New Mexico as the swing states in this contest - Obama and Clinton are pretty evenly matched there. Missouri is a swing state in the general election, and might be one in this one as well.


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Voting groups

Obama has been trying, with the use of surrogates such as Oprah Winfrey, to cut into the advantage Clinton enjoys among women.

The vote also should offer a test of whether Obama has succeeded in cementing what has appeared to be an exodus of black voters from the Clinton camp to Obama's campaign, as began happening in South Carolina two weeks ago.

Georgia, which has an electorate with a heavy black representation, and New York should offer a good and relatively early measure of that.

The final big question for Democrats:

Will Clinton maintain the edge among Latino voters that she showed in Florida and Nevada?

New York and California should offer an interesting test, as well as a test of whether blacks and Latinos, uneasy political allies in many circumstances, break for different candidates.

The extent to which Republicans are coalescing around McCain will be measured by how well he does in contests open only to members of his party, depriving him of the support of independents, who helped him so much in New Hampshire, where they could vote in party primaries.

Again, California is the place to watch. To judge his potential strength as a general election nominee, watch to see if conservatives put aside their qualms about him and vote for him.

Among McCain's Republican rivals, one key is evangelical voters.

Romney is not going to be very happy should they continue to rally behind the campaign of Mike Huckabee, the former Baptist minister.


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The issues

With the economy having emerged in the past few months as the dominant issue, and with the race moving to a national stage, one issue to watch is whether Republican voters will continue to focus as much on a subject that has divided their party, illegal immigration.

The answer could be of particular importance to McCain, who was unable to compete in Iowa in part because many Republicans there saw him as too soft on the issue.

On the Democratic side, Obama has again started criticizing Clinton for voting to authorize the war in Iraq.

After her apparent success earlier in this campaign in putting the war vote behind her among Democratic voters, it would be problematic for her now to be forced back on the defensive.

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