Editorial
America's Super Tuesday primaries
The battle is not yet over for Clinton and Obama
Super Tuesday in the United Stated has come and gone. In what was clearly a carnival spirit, both in the American media and among American citizens, the question of which politicians will end up being the candidates for the White House at the November election was wrestled with. The Republicans have all but formally made it clear that John McCain, a respected senator and former POW in Vietnam, will be their standard bearer. He has clearly left all his rivals, including the high spending Mitt Romney, well behind.
But if the Republicans now have a clearer sense of where they are going in the run-up to November, the Democrats know only that much uncertainty about who will be their nominee for the presidency still prevails. Hillary Clinton has surely won some of the more important states --- California, New York, Massachusetts --- and has thus shown that her hold on the public imagination is yet strong. But, then, Barack Obama is also beginning to demonstrate a remarkable capacity to loosen Mrs. Clinton's grip. He has won in thirteen states compared to eight for the New York senator; and in terms of delegate count has almost come level with her. What will surely be more worrying for Hillary Clinton is that Senator Obama has his coffers overflowing with money, with campaign donations coming from nearly everywhere. His oratory and theme of change have sent millions of Americans, especially blacks and the young, flocking to his campaign offices around the country. Moreover, an analysis of the results in the states he has won shows that his appeal stretches to all shades of Americans. In the next few weeks, therefore, it is a formidable Obama bandwagon that Clinton will face. The battle between the two may well lead up to an intense, perhaps even vicious, Democratic convention in August.
In short, for all the clarity of purpose in the Republican camp, the battle for the nomination, where the Democrats are concerned, is far from over. What might be true, however, is that Americans could see, in January next year, a black or a woman take charge as president. All of that possibility will come to nought, though, if John McCain, having demolished Romney and the others in his party, repeats the performance against whoever becomes the Democratic candidate for November.
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