Super Wednesday

The votes aren't quite all counted and delegate apportionment is still very much up in the air, but the dust has settled enough now that we can begin to see the landscape of yesterday's battlefield.

There were about 14.8 million Democratic votes yesterday (versus 8.8 million Republican) and Clinton garnered about 67,000 more than Obama, which is less than 0.5% of the total.

[Update: According to realclearpolitics.com, it was 14.6 million Democrats, 9 million Republicans, and Clinton won by 70,415 (which is still less than 0.5%)]

A lot of the polls were obviously way off, especially John Zogby's, which had predicted Obama winning by 6% in California. For future reference, SurveyUSA (often called "SUSA" by polling geeks) seems to have done the best overall, and in California they were exactly right: 52%-42% for Clinton.

Currently, it looks like Obama may actually end up winning more delegates. One estimate is 845 for him, 836 for her. The Obama campaign touted those figures in a press release today, while the Clinton campaign responded with something to the effect of, "We're not sure that's correct." Which sounds to me like an affirmation that it probably is correct. But due to the extremely byzantine rules for computing these things, which differ from state to state, it will take at least a couple of days to know for sure.

The Clinton campaign raised about $13 million in January, while Obama raised $32 million. Clinton is apparently out of cash: her top-level staffers have agreed to work without pay for the next month and she has loaned the campaign $5 million of her personal money.

Meanwhile, the Obama campaign has raised $5.3 million in the (approximately) 24 hours since the polls have closed. They even have a snarky little graphic showing the current total.   [Looks like they've stopped updating it at $7,596,326]   It was revealed today that Mark Penn, Hillary's "chief strategist," has been paid $4.3 million so far. Josh Marshall suggested that the Obama campaign can now afford to hire him.

There are still 22 states to go. On Saturday we'll see voting in Louisiana, Nebraska, and Washington. On Sunday it's Maine's turn. Next Tuesday it will be Maryland, Virginia, and Washington DC. And on and on it will go. We won't be entirely finished until Puerto Rico votes on June 7th.

It's probable, however, that there won't be a clear winner even going into the convention in August. There are about 1,400 pledged delegates still up for grabs. Unless one of the candidates can somehow, miraculously, win 1,100 (79%) of them, we're going to see a brokered convention. In which case, the real politics will commence — lots of negotiating and horse trading amongst the superdelegates in smoke-filled back rooms. There will almost certainly be a floor vote during the first day of the convention on whether to seat the delegates from Michigan and Florida. Whoever wins that vote will probably go on to win the nomination.

Or maybe it won't be settled even then. Maybe they'll still be completely deadlocked and the only resolution will be to nominate Al Gore as a dark horse candidate. It's highly unlikely, but not impossible. Anything seems possible at the moment, including not needing to hold the convention because all the Republicans have been raptured away to heaven by Jesus (all Republicans except Dick Cheney, of course, since he's the Antichrist).

Speaking of Republicans... McCain is obviously going to win his party's nomination. It's not that Republicans particularly like him. It's just that they can't decide whether they like him less than Romney or whether they like him less than Huckabee. McCain will now spend the next few weeks consolidating his victory, trying to patch things up with conservatives, and starting to move towards the center in preparation for the general election. Although, when you think about it, how will he simultaneously woo both conservatives and the center? It will be interesting to watch him try.

I always thought "Republican" and "conservative" were synonyms. But CNN had a poll last night showing that 27% of Republicans identify themselves as "moderate" and 10% as "liberal." What exactly is a liberal Republican? Someone who believes that rich people should have access to abortions? Or maybe it's a Republican who's married to a Kennedy. I dunno.

Are you tired of politics yet? Hang on, the fun is just beginning.