Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Seems like only yesterday

Politico:

John McCain came out of Super Tuesday with what he needed most, a big batch of delegates. He now has more than twice as many as his nearest rival, enough to bolster a widespread perception that there is no halting his steady-if-staggering path to the Republican nomination.

Mike Huckabee came out of Super Tuesday with a shot in the arm. His surprising string of Southern victories is hardly adequate to make him president but is more than enough to justify his staying in the race in a Happy Warrior role.

Mitt Romney came out of Super Tuesday with a serious problem. Huckabee’s success means he will not get the one-on-one race against McCain he has been hoping for. And his own failures—he has yet to win a primary except in three states where he has deep personal roots—mean his campaign increasingly exudes an air of implausibility, even desperation.

The best scenarios for McCain had him effectively locking up the nomination Tuesday. He came close, with wins in nine states, including the two biggest, New York and California.

But it was hard to call the night an unalloyed triumph. Not with twelve states voting for someone other than the front-runner, and a string of Southern and border states—Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, and West Virginia—all blessing Huckabee, and highlighting McCain’s weakness with base voters in places that are key to any Republican general election strategy.