This Super Tuesday vote should live up to its name

BY MELANIE LEFKOWITZ | melanie.lefkowitz@newsday.com

February 3, 2008

By the time Super Tuesday rolls around in most years, voters are just going through the motions.

Not this time. With no indisputable front-runners on either the Democratic or Republican side, nominating contests in 24 states have the potential to make or break the candidates.

"Usually it's pretty much a foregone conclusion by this point," said Matthew Lebo, a political science professor at Stony Brook University. "To have a wide-open race on both sides - it's the first time that's happened since 1952."

That year, Lebo said, Harry S. Truman abandoned his bid for a third term in March, leaving the field in flux.

This week's big day has been called Super Duper Tuesday for a reason. In 2004, Super Tuesday came a month later, with a primary only on the Democratic side, and involved only 10 states. John Kerry was already the clear front-runner, and he sealed his nomination with a sweep of states. This year, voters in New York, California, New Jersey, and 21 other states will determine where the race is headed, if not where it will end.

With his victory in Florida last week, Republican Sen. John McCain has pulled ahead of his closest rival, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Texas Rep. Ron Paul lag in third and fourth place. Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are neck-and-neck, with Obama holding a slight edge in pledged delegates.

For the Republicans, with plum winner-take-all states up for grabs, the nomination could be within reach. The 21 GOP primaries or caucuses offer 1,069 delegates - 90 percent of the 1,191 needed to secure the nomination. New York, with all 101 delegates going to the winner, would be a trophy for McCain, who polls show to be leading here. California, where McCain has been endorsed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger but where Romney has pledged to compete, has 170 delegates, 16 percent of those at stake Tuesday.

Democrats, who will share delegates in proportion to how many votes they get, are unlikely to have an obvious nominee after Tuesday's contests, but either Obama or Clinton could ride the momentum from the results to victory. There are 1,600 delegates at stake - nearly 80 percent of the 2,025 needed to win. Illinois and New York, Obama and Clinton's home states, respectively, offer 466 delegates alone. The impact of former Sen. John Edwards' departure remains to be seen.