WASHINGTON, 7 February 2008 — The marathon White House race yesterday headed to new battlegrounds, with Hillary Clinton’s Democratic duel with Barack Obama wide open, and Republican John McCain coasting toward victory.
The Super Tuesday nationwide nominating showdown was once seen as the moment when party nominees would be crowned, but on the Democratic side it solved little as Hillary and Obama slogged out a split decision.
Hillary, 60, won the three biggest prizes — California, New York and Massachusetts — by handy margins, checking an Obama surge by capturing eight states, keeping alive her quest to be the first woman president. But Sen. Obama won more states, 13, including his own patch of Illinois, battlegrounds Connecticut and Missouri, and Georgia by a landslide. New Mexico was still too close to call.
The rivals geared up for a grinding war of attrition in a flurry of looming nominating contests, for delegates doled out by states on a proportional basis.
Hillary’s team even raised the possibility that the race could drag on until the party’s nominating convention in August.
“It is likely that neither side will ever come out to a large lead in delegates,” said campaign communications chief Howard Wolfson.
“And so for all of those who wish for a battle that goes to the convention, in terms of neither side definitively wrapping this up, you could be looking at that here,” he said.
The RealClearPolitics.com running count had Hillary on 900 delegates, not yet half of the 2,025 she needs to capture the nomination. Obama, bidding to be the first black president, was close behind with 824.
Obama’s campaign team claimed a narrow edge in the delegate count, as the two sides fought a war of perception over Tuesday’s results.
On the Republican side, McCain stood at 604 delegates, Mitt Romney had 244 and Mike Huckabee was on 187, according to the tally. Republicans need 1,191 to capture their nomination.
For Hillary, her win in Massachusetts was especially sweet, after the northeastern state’s heavyweight Democratic Senators Edward Kennedy and John Kerry backed Obama, sparking a publicity blitz.
“I look forward to continuing our campaign and our debate — about how to leave this country better off for the next generation, because that is the work of my life,” Hillary told a “victory” rally in New York.
Obama, however, laid claim to the momentum in the knife-edge Democratic race. “Our time has come. Our movement is real. And change is coming to America,” he told his rally in Chicago.
McCain, 71, won nine states, including California, New York, Illinois, Connecticut, Delaware and New Jersey.
