Notes on Super Tuesday

Although John McCain received a major boost from his performance on Super Tuesday, the celebrations are a bit premature.

In spite of the fact that he won most of the larger states, including those states with the most delegate counts, McCain faces opposition from an unexpected rival--Mike Huckabee.

Huckabee did much better than expected, winning a number of southern states by a comfortable margin.

If this is truly a '2-man race,' it is clear that now it is between McCain and Huckabee rather than McCain and Romney.

Romney struggled, in spite of his favored status among the GOP's most conservative voters. The explanation can be laid directly at the feet of Huckabee, who showed that his strength among both white and black evangelical Christians is a force with which to contend.

California's prize of mega-delegates could be a silver lining in the dark cloud for Romney, who has been polling very well in the state. If he can win California, he can make a case for continuing in the race.

On the Democratic side it is clear that the Party is divided. Obama and Clinton each won a significant number of primaries and will probably wind up with a divided delegate count.

The suprise of the evening, however, is just how strong Obama proved to be on a day that was once proclaimed by Hillary to be the day she would sweep the lion's share of the primaries and win the nomination.

Hillary is still by no means out of this race, however. She has shown some surprising strength in areas tonight where she was expected to faulter.

One pundit stated that Hillary has begun to turn around her downward slide, and the moment that turn-around began was when husband Bill decided to keep his mouth shut.

It's a good thing he went mum when he did. Obama has shown some surprising strength of his own in areas where he had little support at first, such as white affluent suburbanites.

Perhaps Bill's use of the race card backfired.

But stay tuned. California is still out due to the time differential. Polls in the state will not close until 11 PM EST.

The state is up for grabs in both Parties, with both Obama and Romney in position to pull off an upset. We shall see.