Democrats still battle while McCain win seems sure

BY CRAIG GORDON | craig.gordon@newsday.com; Staff writer Letta T

February 7, 2008

Republican John McCain looks like he's about to cross the finish line.

For the Democrats, it's almost as if they're back at the starting gate - with a race that could drag on for months. They battled to a draw on Super Tuesday, a night that crowned neither favorite nor front-runner between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama and set both campaigns scouring the calendar for bright spots ahead.

McCain's New York-to-California near-sweep put the Republican nomination within his grasp, as Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney split the conservative anti-McCain vote.

Both his rivals pledged to fight on, but it's not clear they'll be able to find enough delegates to halt McCain's momentum. McCain also faces a challenge on a third front - conservative talk-radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh who have launched a late stop-McCain drive - but, so far, he has been able to win enough moderate Republicans and independents to rack up a series of victories.

"As long as it's a three-way race, this is John McCain's nomination to lose," said Nathan Gonzales of the Rothenberg Political Report.

On the Democratic side, both Clinton and Obama said they had a good night Tuesday, with Obama saying his wins in 13 of 22 states show broad support. Both somehow still declared themselves the underdog.

If there were any clues as to who came out stronger Tuesday, they pointed to Obama - as Clinton loaned her once-flush campaign $5 million, confirmed some aides are deferring pay and pressed Obama to join a series of new debates, a challenge typically laid down by a lagging candidate. Obama didn't take the bait, saying only he'd consider it.

At the same time, Clinton holds a small lead in the total number of delegates - the coin of the realm in securing the nomination - and scored wins in four of the five biggest states on the block Tuesday, matching McCain's New York and California victories.

She even grabbed a win in Massachusetts despite John F. Kennedy's brother and daughter calling Obama an inspirational figure on par with the slain president.

"Among the Democrats, there's no clear winner," said Merle Black of Emory University in Atlanta. "It looks like two fairly evenly matched candidates who could take it all the way to the convention."

If no winner emerges from the remaining contests between Saturday and June 7, when Puerto Rico caps the primary season, the Clinton-Obama battle could spill into the Democratic convention in Denver in August. No one is predicting it yet. But no one is discounting the possibility either. It's that kind of year.

Democratic national chairman Howard Dean even suggested he might have to get involved to head off a convention fight that would harm the party's chances of winning the White House if the two candidates are still too-close-to-call come summer.

"Then we're going to have to get the candidates together and make some kind of an arrangement," Dean said. "The idea that we can afford to have a big fight at the convention and then win the race in the next eight weeks, I think, is not a good scenario."

Still, the next few weeks set up very well for Obama - he could run the table in seven contests between now and Tuesday and claim a fleeting burst of momentum. Washington, Louisiana and Nebraska vote Saturday, Maine on Sunday and Tuesday brings the "Chesapeake Primary" in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. Obama also hopes to do well Feb. 19 in Wisconsin and in Hawaii, where he was born.

Clinton's camp is looking ahead to March 4 races in Ohio, where she has a 20-point lead in recent polls, and Texas, where her sizable edge among Hispanic voters could pay off.

Analysts are saying that, based on exit polls, the race is breaking down roughly into women, Latinos and blue-collar voters for Clinton, with young, African-American and better-educated whites for Obama - coalitions that seem to favor Clinton in the long run, because she is tapping more traditional Democratic groups.

Staff writer Letta Tayler contributed to this story.

The delegate count

Previous totals Won Tuesday Other/super delegates Total

Hillary Clinton 48 804 193 1,045

Barack Obama 63 791 106 960

Previous totals Won Tuesday Other/super delegates Total

John McCain 96 594 17 707

Mitt Romney 93 192 9 294

Mike Huckabee 26 166 3 195

Ron Paul 6 8 0 14