There are just 8 days left until VOTR Day, when Vermont, Ohio, Rhode Island and Texas go to the polls and–in all likelihood–decide the Democratic nominee.

On the Democratic side, it’s do-or-die for Hillary Clinton. Her campaign–through surrogates like James Carville and Bill Clinton–has said that winning TX and OH are crucial to her campaign. If she doesn’t walk away with both states under her belt, there will be tremendous pressure on Clinton to step aside and allow Obama to start campaigning as the nominee.

To that extent, things aren’t looking good for Clinton. Pollster shows Obama moving up in both OH and TX; though Clinton is still up by 10 points in the Buckeye State, her lead has been cut down significantly in recent days. In Texas, Clinton’s lead has been cut down to nothing; she and Obama are now tied.

ARG has Obama leading by 8% in TX, but losing by 10% on OH. PPP has Clinton leading Obama by 4% in Ohio, while CNN has Obama leading Clinton by 4% in Texas.

No matter how you cut it, things are too close for comfort for Hillary Clinton. If Obama continues building momentum at the rate he has, he’ll almost certainly walk away with Texas and, quite possibly, Ohio. Clinton is going to have to act now to stop his momentum, and I’m not sure if the strategy they’re adopting–going extremely negative–will reverse their fortunes.

Clinton is giving a major policy address tonight at George Washington University in Washington, DC–hopefully for her, she’ll unveil a new strategy for her flagging campaign. As for Obama, the ground he’s made up since Super Tuesday has been impressive–he has weathered extremely negative attacks and sharp criticisms, and he has always come out on top. Right now, Obama is leading nationally, showing that his campaign has a bright future ahead of them.

On the Republican side, John McCain hasn’t even won the nomination and he’s already in serious trouble.

The Vicki Iseman/Lobbygate scandal has shown McCain’s uncomfortably close relationship to special interests, and that his top campaign advisers are corporate lobbyists. The FEC fracas has demolished his image as a campaign finance reformer; his potentially-illegal attempt to weasel out of public financing rules could land his campaign in court.

As the McCain campaign takes hit after hit in the court of public opinion, there’s talk that Mitt Romney may re-ignite his suspended Presidential campaign. I don’t consider it a very likely scenario–Romney has already endorsed McCain, and he’s clearly hoping to use his 300 delegates to become the Vice Presidential candidate.

If Romney chooses to jump back in, his best bet would be to win at the convention, winning over McCain’s pledged delegates by capitalizing off of their buyer’s remorse in the wake of these scandals.

Nonetheless, it seems like a news cycle doesn’t go by without McCain shooting himself in the foot. Witness his latest statement on Iraq:

My friends, the war will be over soon, the war for all intents and purposes although the insurgency will go on for years and years and years. But it will be handled by the Iraqis, not by us, and then we decide what kind of security arrangement we want to have with the Iraqis.

Of course, we’ve heard this kind of happy talk before–not just from George Bush and Dick Cheney, but from McCain himself:

I think the victory will be rapid, within about three weeks. [MSNBC, 1/28/03]

It’s clear that the end is very much in sight. … It won’t be long. It, it’ll be a fairly short period of time. [ABC, 4/9/03]

We’re either going to lose this thing or win this thing within the next several months. [Meet The Press, 11/12/06]

And does it really matter how close to “victory” we are if we’re going to be in Iraq for–as McCain said–10,000 years?

John McCain: worse than Bush’s third term.

Still, the race is still extremely fluid, and a lot can change in the coming days. Make sure to check back for developments in this very contentious primary season.

UPDATE: Here’s the article from GW’s student newspaper covering Clinton’s remarks in DC today.

Virginia results from TPM, 8:42 PM EST:

(71% reporting)

______________________________________

Barack Obama and John McCain are projected to win the Virginia primary. No word yet from D.C., where the polls have already closed.

UPDATE: More results, from CNN:

Maryland (96% Reporting)

Obama: 60%
Clinton: 37%

Virginia (99% Reporting)

Obama: 64%
Clinton: 35%

District of Columbia (98% Reporting)

Obama: 75%
Clinton: 24%

And for the Republicans:

Maryland (96% Reporting)

McCain: 55%
Huckabee: 29%

Virginia (99% Reporting)

McCain: 50%
Huckabee: 41%

District of Columbia (98% Reporting)

McCain: 68%
Huckabee: 17%

_____________________________

FINAL UPDATE:

John McCain and Barack Obama have swept the Beltway Primary, winning D.C., Maryland and Virginia.

Today Maryland, Virginia, and D.C. all go to the polls in the Democratic and Republican primaries.

On the Democratic side, Barack Obama is expected to win all three contests handily–Pollster shows him with a significant lead in both MD and VA, while a Constituent Dynamics/RT Strategies survey shows him winning D.C. with 63% of the vote to Hillary Clinton’s 27%.

With 168 delegates at stake tonight, there’s a chance Obama may overtake Hillary’s lead in pledged delegates. Take a look at the current distribution of delegates (according to various news outlets):

CNN: Clinton 1,148, Obama 1,121ABC: Clinton 1,149, Obama 1,127

NBC: Obama 958, Clinton 904 (Not counting super-delegates.)

CBS: Obama 1,139, Clinton 1,132

AP: Clinton 1,147, Obama 1,142

Obama is trailing by an extremely small margin, and tonight’s contests may erode or eliminate that lead. And though Clinton still have an overall larger number of delegates in her corner–due to support from Democratic superdelegates–Obama will be able to claim that he has more pledged delegates, and thus he has the support of the voters.  Expect him to use that argument to win over undecided superdelegates.

To some extent, it appears that the Clinton campaign is writing off a lot of upcoming states, assuming that they’re going to lose those contests. And while it’s easier for Clinton to brush those losses if they didn’t campaign there, it means that she’s ceding a lot of delegates–and possibly her lead in pledged delegates–to Obama.

Matt Yglesias has this to say:

What seems to be going on here is that Clinton feels that she can’t maintain the pretense that Maryland and Washington and Virginia and The Other Washington and Maine and Nebraska and the US Virgin Islands and Louisiana “don’t count” if she bothers to campaign in these places. But thanks to the way Democrats allocate delegates, there’s a substantial difference between “losing” a jurisdiction and getting blown out in that jurisdiction. My guess is that Clinton’s lackluster campaigning is creating a situation where she’s leaving delegates on the table.

That’s a bad strategy on Clinton’s part–she’s ceding current states to focus on later states, which puts her on the defensive and forces her campaign to establish a firewall. This is the same strategy Giuliani used in his failed campaign–after it became clear he wasn’t going to win early states, he invested everything he had in Florida; when Giuliani lost, he was forced to bow out.

Right now, Clinton is campaigning like she has a significant lead and can afford to lose ground; in reality, she doesn’t have that much she can afford to give up.  If she wants to pull this around, she should be campaigning like she’s the underdog, not the undisputed front-runner–because she isn’t, anymore.

The narrative that’s emerging is that Clinton’s firewall will be Ohio and Texas, which vote on March 4th.   If that’s true–and she’s ceding all of the states between now and then–Clinton’s in trouble; as she loses state after state, it’ll become harder and harder for her to prove her viability to those two crucial states. It will be a difficult strategy to pull off, regardless.

On the Republican side, Pollster shows MD and VA in the McCain column; though Huckabee has shown some positive movement in VA, it’s unlikely he’ll pick up enough ground to win there.  As far as DC goes, there isn’t a lot of reliable polling data coming out of here, so we’ll have to wait until tonight for answers.

Meanwhile, in a basically-unpublicized move, former Presidential candidate Fred Thompson has endorsed John McCain, a move that probably won’t make any difference in the Republican primary. In addition, former McCain detractor and disgraced former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has also put his reservations aside to endorse the Arizona Senator.

While much of the conservative base is coming around to support McCain–now that he’s the presumptive nominee–there are still a lot of McCain opponents in the GOP.  Meanwhile, Huckabee’s fiscal policies rub much of the GOP the wrong way, which is preventing him from winning the support of the anti-McCain coalition, which includes former Romney supporters.  If Huckabee can’t begin winning their support–and fast–then he won’t be able to rival McCain’s significant delegate count.  At this point, despite the reservations of the conservative GOP base, it will be hard to stop McCain from seizing the nomination.

The polls close in a few hours, and I’ll bring you results as they come in. Make sure to check back once the polls have closed.

Breaking news from CNN:

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton has replaced her campaign manager with a longtime adviser, Maggie Williams, the campaign announced Sunday.

Williams served as Clinton’s chief of staff when the New York senator was first lady.

Ex-campaign chief Patti Solis Doyle has been reassigned to a senior adviser’s job, the Clinton’s campaign announced in a memo to its staff.

Solis Doyle’s replacement–Maggie Williams–was brought in after Clinton’s surprise loss in Iowa, and she has played a key role ever since.

Considering Clinton’s underperformance on Super Tuesday, her losses in Louisiana, Washington and Nebraska (and possibly Maine) and her disappointing poll numbers in upcoming states like Maryland and Virginia, a shakeup isn’t surprising. Clinton went from being the undisputed front-runner and a nearly inevitable candidate to fighting for her life and losing significant ground to Barack Obama; somebody had to be held responsible for that.

On the one hand, this is welcome news–Clinton wouldn’t be changing campaign managers if she thought her campaign was being run well, so this is a sign she understands that there are problems and that she is going to take steps to resolve them.

On the other hand, ditching your campaign manager is a pretty big deal, and it shows that the Clinton camp knows they’re in trouble–right now, the Clinton campaign doesn’t have a lot of room to falter, and this could end up causing more harm than good. Unless there is a seamless transition that leads to positive results, this decision could prove to be a major mistake at a key point in the campaign.

Like most things in politics, we won’t know what effect this will have for a bit. Hopefully-for the Clinton campaign–Williams will be able to get the campaign’s surrogates under control while reversing Clinton’s slipping poll numbers before her backslide causes any more damage.

Now, if they could only get rid of Mark Penn…

On the Democratic side, today saw Louisiana, Washington and Nebraska go to the polls, and the results are unanimous:

NBC calls Lousiana for Obama, giving him a sweep of all three states tonight — Lousiana, Nebraska and Washington State.

With 31% reporting, Obama leads Hillary 51%-39%.

[...]

Late Update: The Obama campaign has a memo out detailing the lead in delegates that has resulted from tonight’s wins.

Here’s more from campaign manager David Plouffe:

Based on estimates of returns, Obama more than doubled his current pledged delegate lead. Entering tonight, the lead was 27 pledged delegates, it is now estimated to be a lead of 72. In the four contests today, we estimate we won 103 delegates to Clinton’s 58 delegates for a net gain of 45 delegates.

This net gain of 45 delegates represent more than the 42 delegate net gain Senator Clinton earned in the states of Massachusetts, New Jersey, Tennessee and Arizona – combined.

The pledged delegate total through February 9 now stands at 1,012 for Obama and 940 for Clinton.

Delegate Estimates

Louisiana Delegate Projection: Obama 32 – Clinton 24

Nebraska Delegate Projection: Obama 16 – Clinton 8

Washington Delegate Projection: Obama 52 – Clinton 26

Virgin Islands Delegate Projection: Obama 3 – Clinton 0

Of course, that’s the campaign’s own math, which is obviously going to be subject to some bias.  In addition, it doesn’t include Clinton’s sizable share of the Democratic superdelegates, which is keeping her ahead in the delegate race.

After the divided results on Super Tuesday, this is certainly good news for Obama.  In addition, all the polls show that the beltway primary–February 12th, when Virginia, Maryland and D.C. will go to the polls–should also be favorable to him.  Though the nominee will will probably be decided by superdelegates, the candidate who amasses the most pledged delegates from the primary will have a strong argument to make for superdelegate support, having won the the majority of Democratic voters.

Meanwhile, on the Republican side, Mike Huckabee has won Kansas:

In what will likely be taken as a sign of Republican Party disunity, presumptive nominee John McCain has lost this afternoon’s Kansas caucuses to Mike Huckabee — and it wasn’t even close. With 88% reporting, Huck has 60% to McCain’s 24%, followed by Ron Paul at 11%. Huckabee will almost certainly win all 36 of the delegates up for grabs.

The GOP’s two other contests–Louisana and Washington–are currently too close to call.  Here are the current results:

Louisiana:  

GOP (96% reporting)

Huckabee	43%
McCain	42%
Paul	5%
Romney	6%

Washington:

GOP (78% reporting)

Huckabee	24%
McCain	25%
Paul	21%
Romney	16%

What’s interesting to see is Huckabee’s strength against McCain–I doubt that, if Romney were still in the race, McCain would be losing either of those states.  To some extent, Romney and Huckabee split the conserative votes, though they appealed to two different types of conservative–Huckabee appealed to the social conservatives, while Romney appealed to the pro-corporate conservatives.

Now that Romney is out, though, it’s possible that a lot of his conservative supporters are moving to Huckabee–though he may not be their ideal candidate, a significant enough number of them could view him as more acceptable than McCain.  Though McCain is well on his way to the nomination, if he starts to trip up now he’ll leave Huckabee an opening, which could bolster his support among the conservative base.

I’ll bring you updates on the undecided races tomorrow, which is also the date of the Maine Democratic caucus, where the sparse polling data shows Clinton in the lead..  After that, both sides will take part in February 12th’s beltway primary between Maryland, Virginia and D.C.  Keep a lookout on Huckabee’s support in the post-Romney world, as well as how both the Clinton and Obama campaigns react to tonight’s news.

Super Tuesday has come and gone, and it was a tremendous night for both Democrats and Republicans.

On the Democratic side, both Clinton and Obama performed well, picking up a significant amount of states and delegates.  While Clinton took the lead in major states such as Massachusetts, New York and California, Obama lead in more states overall, particularly red states.

In fact, here’s the breakdown of the states won by each candidate:

Obama: Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Alaska, Utah, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, North Dakota, Alabama,  Georgia

Clinton:  California, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New York, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Arizona,

For Clinton, it was an even split between blue states and red states (though you can chock Arkansas up to her tenure as First Lady of that state).

For Obama, he won just as many blue states as Clinton,  but he also won more than twice as many red states.  What does that mean? Well, it shows that Obama appeals to moderates–at least moderate Democrats–more than Clinton; this crossover appeal may come to help him in the general election.

Of course, who won what states doesn’t matter as much as who won more delegates.  The delegate count varies depending on which news organization you consult, but the general consensus is that Obama came within his campaign’s self-declared goal of being within 100 delegates of from Clinton.  Of course, they wouldn’t have set that goal if they didn’t know they could meet, but Obama is definitely close to Clinton in the delegate race.

Overall, hard to say which Democrat won on Tuesday, if either of them did.  If I had to come to a conclusion, it’s that Clinton fell slightly short of expectations and Obama came out slightly ahead.  Clinton had a large lead both nationally and in a lot of Super Tuesday states, which Obama ate into slightly as the big day approached.  And while Clinton won every state she expected to win, she didn’t expand much outside that group–meanwhile, Obama didn’t manage to score a big coup in a major blue state, but he won more states, including most of the toss-ups.

On the Republican side, I was extremely surprised.  McCain performed well below expectations, while Romney–and especially Huckabee–outperformed expectations.  McCain won a lot of states overall, but he lot of red states.

Here’s the breakdown of the states won by each candidate:

McCain: Missouri,  Arizona, Oklahoma, California, New York, Delaware,  New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois,

Romney: Alaska, Montana, Colorado,  North Dakota, Utah, Massachusetts, Minnesota,

Huckabee: Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, West Virginia, Arkansas,

Only 3 out of McCain’s 9 states were red states; Romney had 2 blue states and 5 red states; Huckabee had no blue states and 5 red states. 

Does this mean McCain–like Obama–has crossover appeal that could help him in the general? I doubt it.  Keep in mind that 2008 should be a favorable year for Democrats in general, and that the voters are tired of the status quo and hungry for change.

In addition, both Obama and Clinton enjoy massive support from their party’s base–no matter who the nominee is, the vast majority of Democratic voters will line up behind them. On the other hand, McCain has a lot of detractors in the GOP, many who have already signaled that they will not back McCain even if he is the Republican nominee.

Because of this, I think it’s far more likely for Republicans, Republican-leaning independents and independents to flock to Democrats than for Democrats, Democratic-leaning independents  or independents in general to flock to Republicans.

Overall, I expected McCain to win far more states–I didn’t expect Romney to be as strong as he was, and I didn’t expect Huckabee to win anything at all.  Tuesday was an unbridled mess for the GOP, and I think it shows just how divided their party is.  While McCain is leading, there is clearly a lot of discontent with him and a strong hunger for someone else.

Of course, it’s hard to tell what will happen now that Romney is dropping out. He was the candidate of choice for much of the GOP base–voters who felt that McCain is too liberal and too unreliable and that Huckabee is a pro-big government zealot. In fact, a lot of conservative leaders–such as Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich and Ann Coulter–have stated outright  that they will not support McCain under any circumstances, instead supporting Romney as the conservative alternative.  With Romney now gone, a lot of Republicans might be left without any candidates worthy of their support.   While some Romney supporters might tepidly back McCain now, it’s unlikely they will do so with much enthusiasm or fervor.

Where do we go from here? For the Democrats, there are 2 days until Washington, Nebraska, Louisiana and the Virgin Islands vote; Maine votes on the 10th, while D.C., Maryland and Virginia vote on the 12th.

For the Republicans, there are 2 days until Kansas, Louisiana and Washington vote, while D.C., Maryland and Virginia vote on the 12th.

I’m interested on seeing how Obama and Clinton perform in a post-Super Tuesday world, and I’m interested in seeing how the GOP race will change now that Romney is gone. Will McCain pick up more support? Will Huckabee? Will a lot of disaffected Republicans just start staying home?

We’ll have to wait and see…

DCist explains:

When it comes to who the D.C. Republican Party should side with in the 2008 presidential contest, the choice is obvious — Mike Huckabee.

Sure, the former governor of Arkansas doesn’t have much of a chance of winning, but he’s been consistent in his support of D.C. voting rights. In yesterday’s All-American Presidential Forum on PBS, hosted by Tavis Smiley, it was Huckabee who backed voting rights for the District’s 600,000 residents. In response to a question, Huckabee stated, “I believe that the people of D.C. should be able to vote for representation. I think that’s appropriate, for the simple reason of equality and justice….They ought to be able to vote.” And while his claims might have seemed like pandering to Smiley’s largely black audience, in late August Huckabee broke with President Bush on the issue, arguing, “They’re American citizens. They pay taxes and it just doesn’t seem right that someone could be even partially disenfranchised.”

Then again, 90% of DC voted for John Kerry in 2004, so that may not make much of a difference. Still, I’m glad to see a Presidential candidate talking about this–hopefully the rest will follow.

From DCist:

[New Hampshire State] Representative Cindy Rosenwald (Hillsborough District 22) recently introduced legislation that would declare the state’s regret for the votes of its two senators and throw the Granite State’s support behind the move to enfranchise the District’s 600,000 residents. Rosenwald has said that she expects a hearing on the bill in early 2008, possibly around the time the state hosts its all-important presidential primary.

If we in the District are ever to stop being second-class citizens, we’re going to need brave Americans like Rosenwald to stand up and say enough is enough. Having 600,000 Americans without a voice in their own government is a shameful stain on our great American democracy.

Sadly, Republicans care less about doing what’s right than playing political games, holding desperately onto their dwindling power. Then again, the GOP has repeatedly shown that upholding American beliefs and values always takes a backseat to politicking and power-grabbing.

Thank you, Representative Rosenwald. If only we had a Congress full of good Americans like yourself.