Making sense of Super Tuesday

Joan Walsh
salon.com
Thursday February 7, 2008

My friends at MSNBC were getting ready for a big party Tuesday night when the first results came in, showing Barack Obama winning handily in Georgia. There was genuine news, and very good news, in the results: Obama carried more than 40 percent of white Georgia voters, showing he can break out of the "black candidate" box some observers (perhaps some in the Hillary Clinton camp) want to lock him in, and in the South, no less. No matter which candidate or which party you support, Obama's growing appeal with white voters is good news for America.

But it was really good news at MSNBC. You could see the expectations grow that finally they would be able to finish the dance on Clinton's grave they'd begun on Jan. 8, when she denied them the fun by winning New Hampshire. "Barack Obama is putting a smile on America's face," declared Mike Barnicle. The last time I talked to Barnicle was the morning of Jan. 8, when he was predicting Clinton would not only lose New Hampshire, she'd have to pull out of the presidential race before Feb. 5 to avoid a humiliating loss in her home state of New York. But being wrong doesn't get you kicked off television, as long as you're consistently wrong on behalf of the right candidate.

Barack Obama had a Super Tuesday. But how super it was depends on where you measure it from. If you look back at Clinton's huge lead in most Super Tuesday states at the end of 2007, you'd have to call it a disappointing night for the New York senator. But if you look at the way the race had tightened over the last two weeks -- the surge of momentum Obama got after winning South Carolina, the endorsements of Caroline, Ted and later Ethel Kennedy, SEIU and MoveOn.org, the predictions that he'd take away Massachusetts and he might even win California -- then it looks like a pretty good night for Hillary Clinton. ... ( more )

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