McCain Victor on Super Tuesday as Obama Claims Narrow Lead

By Anastacia Mott Austin

While the battle is not yet over on either side of the aisle, Republicans at least have a clear frontrunner in John McCain after the "Super Tuesday" multiple-state primary.

McCain took the lead in many of the major states in Tuesday’s voting, including high-profile and high-delegate states like New York and California. He won nine states in all, including six whose delegates are all awarded to the state’s overall winner.

The surprise of the evening on the GOP side turned out to be Mike Huckabee, who won in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Arkansas, religiously conservative states. The wins by Huckabee are a slap to Mitt Romney, who had high expectations but came out only a little ahead of Huckabee on Tuesday, winning Alaska, Montana, Colorado, Minnesota, North Dakota, Utah, and Massachusetts.

Early Wednesday both Democratic candidates were claiming victory in the delegate counts, though the latest press releases seem to support Barack Obama’s claim of having won the most. A representative for the Obama campaign told Bloomberg Press that Obama had racked up 847 delegates to Clinton’s 834. The Clinton campaign did not make any statements about exact delegate numbers. Other press sources claim that the delegate victory was Clinton’s.

Political pundits from all sides say that the delegate division between the two Democratic candidates is a virtual tie.

Which would make the day a victory for Obama, they say. The senator from Illinois was the clear underdog going into Tuesday’s race, with some states reporting him at a double-digit disadvantage. The Obama campaign says it never expected to win big in California and New York. But the margins in the week leading up to the vote narrowed rapidly, meaning Obama had made considerable gains.

Now the race is on between Obama and Clinton over who might be the best candidate to beat McCain. Obama’s camp alluded to the fact that the GOP had a lot of "dirt" on Clinton that they would use against her if she gains the Democratic nomination. "The notion that somehow Senator Clinton is going to be immune from attack or there’s not a whole dump truck they can’t back up in a match between her and John McCain is just not true," said Obama.

One concern among Democrats is that, if the nomination race becomes ugly, it could weaken either candidate in the Presidential race later.