Closer Than Ever

I stayed up pretty late last night, watching the numbers come in from the Super Tuesday primarires and it was so exciting that it felt almost like the presidental election does - waiting for numbers and people predicting the outcomes. In case you are not as crazy about politics as I am here are the candidates and the states that they won.

Hillary Clinton Barack Obama
Arkansas North Dakota
New Jersey Utah
New York Alabama
Oklahoma Conn.
Tennessee Georgia
Mass. Illinois
Arizona Kansas
California Minn.
Delaware
Alaska
Idaho
Colorado
Missouri

Hillary earned 728 delegates while Obama is less than 100 behind with 633. One interesting thing that I noticed last night that in the races where Hillary won the state, the voting numbers were very close, with just 7%-15% separating the two, but when Obama won, he won big. He won by 30% or more in several states. I predict that this will be a race to the end. I know that the Clinton's were not expecting this good of a showing and that has to be eating at them. John Edwards has been very quitet since removing himself from the race. You can only think that the vice presidency is on his mind and he would run with either candidate.

On the Republician side:

McCain Romney Huckabee
New Jersey Mass. Arkansas
New York Utah Alabama
Oklahoma North Dakota West Virginia
Conn. Minn, Georgia
Illin. Alaska Tennessee
Arizona Colorado
California Montana
Delaware
Missouri

Not suprisingly, Pastor Mike took home some of the southern states where there is a larger consertative Christian population. Several days before Tuesday, right wing talk radio hosts were proclaming that a vote for Huckabee was a vote for McCain, in essence saying that they were taking away votes that could help Romney. I really think at this point both Huckabee and Romney are out and McCain will gain the nomination. He cannot beat Clinton or Obama though. Delegates on this side have a much farther spread: McCain has 547, Romney has 223, and Huckabee has 145.

Both teams are a long way from having a declared winner. On the democratic side a candidate must win 2025 delegates and the republician must have 1191. The next chance to gain more delegates will be on Feb. 9, where Lousisana, Washington, and Kansas(Rep.) will cast their ballots.