“There is one thing on this February night that we do not need the final results to know: our time has come. Our time has come, our movement is real, and change is coming to America.” Obama takes the Super Tuesday hit, and not only stands his ground but deals some damage of his own. The result? We need more rounds.
It’s Wednesday morning, 3am, so I’ll keep it short for now. But, all in all, I’m pretty pleased with how Super Tuesday shook out tonight. Sure, I’d have liked to see Massachusetts, New Jersey, and California in our column, and was rather dismayed when those pesky exit polls — which had us winning in MA and NJ — turned out to be bunk. But, around 10pm or so, the tide turned, with Obama racking up a slew of states and drawing particularly notable wins in Connecticut, Colorado, Kansas, Minnesota, and Missouri. California didn’t fall, of course, but I’d written it off hours earlier thanks to that early exit poll data.
The thing is, Super Tuesday was meant to be Clinton’s knockout punch — as little as two weeks ago, she was up 20 in the national polls. And, now, Obama is not only still standing, it looks like he may be (ever-so-slightly, of course) in the lead. At the end of the night, we ended up with more states (13 to 8, with NM outstanding) and — more importantly — basically split the delegates (we should know the exact figures in the next few days, but the late tally is 841-837 for Obama, and, regardless, all we had to do is stay close.) And, while Senator Clinton’s support has held steady, Senator Obama has jumped 15 points nationally in just the past two weeks. Now, the Obama campaign has money to burn and time to spend on a smaller — and more favorable — playing field. We have a ways to go yet, but now that we’ve made it over the Super Tuesday hurdle, time is on our side.
Update: It’s still not absolutely official, but Sen. Obama seems to have won more delegates last night. And, as that was kinda the point of the evening, this is very good news.
I think I’ve found an explanation for the exit poll discrepancy, at least in Massachusetts. If you look at the tallies town by town, Obama won in all the big cities (Boston, Cambridge, Worcester), whereas Hillary won the majority of smaller towns in central and southern Mass. I would guess that most of the polling is done in the larger cities (mostly due to accessibility), and therefore can lead to a false skewing towards Obama.
I wake up this morning to see Obama closed the gap in CA to 10 points, which is a relief to me. At least he didn’t lose by more in CA than he did in NY, which looked possible for a brief time last night. Not coming closer in NJ and MA was quite a disappointment, frankly, but I think your assessment — Obama has the cash to compete on a smaller, more favorable playing field — is on the mark. I’ve always felt, though, that insurgency feeds on momentum, and that a long drawn-out nominating contest would favor the candidate whose establishment backing would provide rock solid baseline support.
My big question now is: what on earth happens to those Edwards votes? Does he still technically get delegates pledges to him, or do they just disappear?
Eileen, that could be it. Another theory is that blue-collar voters voted late, when they got off work (after the exits), and they tended to skew for Clinton. Although exit polls are meant to correct for that kind of thing. Oh well. The big lesson here — again — is don’t ever trust polls. I mean, Zogby had Obama up 13 in CA. Fortunately, that looked screwed up to me from the start, but, really, how can you make a living being so wrong?
Interesting thoughts on establishment v. insurgency, Gastonia, But the good news is, according to the Clintons, Obama is now the establishment candidate. Um, yeah.
Regarding Edwards delegates, I believe he still gets them, since he chose to “suspend” rather than end his campaign. At a later day, Edwards can ask them to back a certain candidate of his choosing, although I don’t believe they have to comply.
The media narrative coming out of last night is bizarre. He totally turned the race on its head in just two weeks, and that’s not the story, because notoriously shaky exit polls had him doing even better? And so actually winning when by all rights he should have been blown out of the water is somehow a disappointment? Freaking ridiculous. Do they want him to walk on water before they’ll be impressed?
(Though I do have to admit I was a bit disappointed in the result here in MA. After standing in a mile-long line on monday night to go to an absolutely insane rally where almost everyone of political significance in the state glowingly endorsed him, and with the polls showing him closing fast, I really expected a better result here. Ah well.)
Good point, jdunn. Spin is spin, I suppose, and it’s nothing new under the sun. But, watching the Tuesday results discussed today, I was reminded of nothing more than our current “success” in Iraq. The Clinton campaign keeps lowering the bar, in obvious contradiction to their earlier benchmarks, until they can claim success just for holding down two states they led by double digits in last week.
Ah well, I guess all campaigns do it. And, hey, at least for Obama, the “surge” is working.