Obama “wins” Tsunami Tuesday

Both Democratic camps claimed success after Super Tuesday, but it looks like Obama ended up the big winner. The victory was close, but Obama will end up with something like 845 delegates to Clinton’s 830-ish. Considering where Clinton was polling just a few weeks ago combined with Obama’s January fundraising, the vote yesterday was a triumph for the Illinois Senator.

From the linked Daily Dish post:

But it allows the Obama camp to point out – correctly – that they won a majority of the contests yesterday, won in a wider variety of red and blue states, and won in the number of delegates counted. Obama is also winning in fundraising. That’s a pretty impressive tailwind for this weekend and next Tuesday.

(Update: a dissenting view here from John Judis at TNR’s the Plank. It looks like the commenters came to the same conclusion I did, however.)

Tsunami Tuesday updates

(I’ll periodically add to this post with Super Tuesday updates. All numbers are from CNN.com unless otherwise noted.)

6 pm CST — CNN already calls Georgia for Obama and Huckabee in West Virginia. The current numbers for WV have Huckabee at 52% and Romney with 47%.

6:50 — In Georgia the GOP race is a dead heat with 2% of the vote reporting. McCain is at 36% and Huckabee has 35%.  Romney’s back at 25%.

8:30 — CNN calls more states. Obama wins Illinois and Delaware. Clinton takes New York, Tennessee, Arkansas and Oklahoma

McCain is romping winning New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Connecticut and Illinois. Huckabee gets Arkansas and Romney wins Massachusetts.

9:15 — More results. Obama wins North Dakota and Alabama. Clinton wins Massachusetts and New Jersey.

McCain keeps rolling winning Oklahoma. Romney gets Utah.

10:00 — Obama takes Minnesota, Kansas and Connecticut. Huckabee wins Alabama and McCain carries Arizona.

11:10 — Obama racks up Colorado, Idaho and Utah. With 14% reporting Clinton leads in California 55% to 32%.

Romney’s pace increases with wins in Minnesota, Montana, Colorado and North Dakota. Huckabee gets Tennessee and Georgia.

Missouri remains a key state for both parties and is seeing very tight voting totals. The Democrats split the delegates by percentage so winning the majority is pretty much for bragging rights. The GOP primary is winner-take-all, however, and right now with 98% of the vote in McCain has 33% and Huckabee has 32%.

11:45 — Clinton wins California and Arizona. Obama gets Alaska.

McCain wins both California and Missouri. The Missouri win is particularly big, as outlined above.

The only GOP state remaining is Alaska. We’re still waiting on New Mexico and Missouri for the Democrats. As the talking heads on CNN have all pretty much agreed Huckabee’s strong showing is the big surprise of the night.

12:18 am — The final update. Obama and Clinton are going to fairly evenly split the Missouri delegates, but with 99% reporting CNN has yet to call a winner. Obama leads at the moment. New Mexico votes are coming in and Clinton has a solid 53-38% lead with 15% reporting.

On the GOP side, Alaska is still not reporting results.

Huckabee is the big winner of the night. On the Democratic side both Obama and Clinton can claim success, but Obama displayed an ability to score votes across the spectrum of geography and demographics.

A gloomy prediction for conservatism’s future

Mark Steyn breaks out the doomsday forecast for conservatism quoting a Townhall blog.

From the post:

On the eve of Super Duper Tuesday, conservatives in this great republic could do with some pepping up. Instead, this turned up in my in-box:

First, demography is poised to destroy conservatism in a devastating triple threat. The baby boomers will start retiring, and will probably shift a little to the left in the process. Second, Mexican immigrants will most likely end up being pretty leftist. Finally, years of liberals running their own private indoctrination camps through the American education system have finally taken their toll and are churning out reliably liberal kids who will inevitably come of age. Not enough of them are conservatives and not enough of them will be mugged by reality to convert to conservatism. It is ultimately these three factors that threaten to sink conservatism for at least a couple decades.

Gulp. Anything else?

This was conservatives’ last chance… The only chance was for a really good conservative leader to be elected and make a Reaganesque impression on the country that would delay the liberal fate. If Romney is defeated tomorrow, that will not happen, and tomorrow will live in infamy as a monumental defeat for conservatism.

More Tsunami Tuesday runup

McCain expects to wrap up the GOP nomination tomorrow.

From the article:

“From what we see in the polls, there is a very good chance it could be over on Tuesday,” said the Arizona senator, adding: “The sooner we get that done, the sooner I can go to work on uniting the party.”

Bob Novak opines Hillary won’t be the Democratic nominee when the sun rises Wednesday despite a front-loaded primary system created by Terry McAuliffe to help Clinton.

He writes:

There is no mathematical possibility of Super Tuesday balloting in 22 states for 1,681 delegates — labeled the first ”national” primary — giving either Clinton or Sen. Barack Obama close to the 2,025 delegates necessary for nomination. That unexpected reality is produced by Obama’s appeal, Clinton fatigue and extreme proportional representation adopted by the Democratic Party.

Republicans are ready to crown Sen. John McCain as their nominee. Democrats will still be battling.

Tsunami Tuesday in Cali

California is a key Tsunami Tuesday state tomorrow. Here’s an article covering some of the issues, but mostly focused on the Obama/Clinton battle.

 From the article:

An independent Field Poll released Sunday showed Clinton’s long-standing advantage over Obama had evaporated. The race is now a dead heat, with Clinton at 36 percent and Obama at 34 percent among likely Democratic primary voters.

In mid-January, Clinton held a 12-point edge. The poll also found that 18 percent of voters remain undecided, making a last-minute campaign push all the more crucial.

Among Republicans, Sunday’s Field Poll showed McCain with an 8-point lead over Romney, 32 percent to 24 percent. Huckabee had the support of 13 percent of likely voters, with 15 percent undecided.

Tsunami Tuesday is about to make landfall

This is an interesting story covering five trends to watch tomorrow with the Tsunami Tuesday primaries.

Tsunami Tuesday

Hendrik Hertzberg writing a Talk of the Town piece in the January 21, 2008, New Yorker described the February 5 primaries as “Tsunami Tuesday.”

I haven’t heard that one before, and think it’s brilliant. At least much, much better than “Super Duper Tuesday” as it’s been dubbed in some circles.