Super Tuesday: Obama Takes Georgia...

...Link

This was not much of a surprise as Alabama looks to be the state that Clinton expected to fare better.

On the GOP side, however, it's a three-man battle between McCain, Romney and Huckabee.

Super Tuesday's First Winner: Huckabee??

In one of the one notable sissy fights in recent political memory, Mike Huckabee wins the West Virginia primary caucus GOP meeting of the minds due to a positional war between camps from John McCain and Mitt Romney.

Romney led after the first round of voting, but he didn't have enough support to win the state's 18 delegates. After the first ballot, Romney had 41 percent, Huckabee had 33 percent, McCain had 15.5 percent, and Ron Paul had 10 percent, according to the Gazette.

Under convention rules, a candidate must get at least 50 percent to win the delegates. Also under the rules, Paul was taken off the second ballot.

A McCain representative urged his supporters to back Huckabee on the second ballot. "The best scenario for the McCain campaign was to not have a Romney victory here today," Gary Abernathy, a McCain supporter and former state GOP director, told the Gazette.

This....means...WAR

And the anti-McCain people have come back fighting with both guns blazin', the most notable of these foot soldiers is Dr. James Dobson, the found of Focus on the Family, who says he'd never vote for the lovable straight-talkin' Arizona Senator and former Vietnam War Hero.

Not all the GOP talk is anti-McCain, however, as former presidential "candidate" and the original GOP grandfather, Bob Dole, spoke on behalf of his fellow Senator and War Hero in a letter where he told conservative "pundit" Rush Limbaugh to...shut up.

"I worked closely with Senator McCain when he came to the Senate in 1987 until I departed," Dole, the former Senate Republican leader, wrote. McCain's campaign released a copy yesterday.

"I cannot recall a single instance when he did not support the party on critical votes. (At my age, I cannot be entirely certain but here are a few key conservative examples)," wrote the 84-year-old Dole.

Limbaugh, of course, ran to the closest available microphone and replied...so did his new BFF Mitt Romney, who said that Bob Dole is "probably the last person I would have wanted to have write a letter for me."

A day later Romney backpeddled like a little bitch and showed proper respect to his GOP superior.

"Let me make it very clear. Senator Dole is an American hero, a war hero, a fine man and a great leader for our party," Romney said in Charleston, W.Va., where GOP voters were a holding a state convention Tuesday.

Yeah...you better make that clear pal!

Down to Two...

...John Edwards has bowed out of his race for the Democratic presidential nomination. He will not give his endorsement to either Obama or Clinton for now and instead has promises from both that they will talk about the issues that mean the most of him (poverty, help to the poor, better hair care products).

Meanwhile both camps were quick to kiss his ass.

"At a time when our politics is too focused on who's up and who's down, he made a nation focus again on who matters -- the New Orleans child without a home, the West Virginia miner without a job, the families who live in that other America that is not seen or heard or talked about by our leaders in Washington," Obama said Wednesday.

And not to be outdone, the Clinton statement.

"John Edwards ended his campaign today in the same way he started it -- by standing with the people who are too often left behind and nearly always left out of our national debate," Clinton said in a statement.

Edwards says he will not consider a running mate position and previous speculation says that he would be the Attorney General in an Obama-run White House.

Florida Predictions

First I predict high turnout..

Democrats: I think Hillary Clinton will take this state by 5-7% points over Obama with John Edwards in a distant third. Edwards has pretty much shunned the state opting for southeastern states that will give him a better chance. Clinton should have a more favorable voting margin among African-Americans in Florida then she did in South Carolina because more Florida voters are transplants from Northeast and have a much more favorable view of the Clinton family right now.

Republicans: I believe John McCain will earn a hard-fought victory over Mitt Romney, which could give him the bounce needed for Super Tuesday. Anything other than a second-place finish will spell the end for Rudy Giuliani while Mike Huckabee is focused on the southern states in Super Tuesday where he will have a good chance at ruffling some feathers.

Nothing is settled yet.

All Florida All The Time...

....I love when primary day comes to my home state!

Obviously the week started off good for Obama when several Kennedys (not named Jane or Jamie) decided to endorse him. Despite all the high profile endorsements, it hasn't showed up at the polls, which tells me that maybe these once important endorsements aren't important anymore.

"I have great respect for President Clinton and great respect for Senator Clinton," Kennedy said, sitting alongside Obama. "But this race really isn't about President Clinton. It's a race of enormous importance and consequence for our country."

However Senator Clinton has endorsements from some Kennedy family members as well including Maryland LT Govenor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.

"As a woman, leader and person of deep convictions, I believe Hillary Clinton would make the best possible choice for president," Kennedy Townsend said in a statement. "She shares so many of the concerns of my father."

Now all the news was bad for Senator Clinton has she picked up a nice endorsement from former "candidate" Senator Joe Biden and a super endorsement from popular Florida Senator Bill Nelson. Biden, who earlier in the campaigning season, made some questionable comments about Obama

On the right side of the Ledger it's a dead heat between Mitt Romney and John McCain with the senior senator from Arizona picking up major endorsements from Senator Mel Martinez and Governor Charlie Crist.

Martinez carries major weight with the Hispanic voters in Florida, the same group Giuliani has been trying to woo for much of the last week with anti-Castro jargon. His speeches were passionate but sparsely attended and much like his campaign, the voters seem to have gotten over it.

Meanwhile Charlie Crist is almost as popular as the legendary Lawton Chiles in the Sunshine state where he appeals to conservatives and liberals alike with his basic centrist policies and lack of pandering to the special interest groups or religious right. His endorsement could give McCain a leg up in the state come national election time.

''There are a lot of great people running for the Republican nomination, for president,'' Crist said, standing next to McCain. "After thinking about it as much as I have I don't think anybody would do a better than the man who stands next to me. That's an endorsement."

Thoughts on SC Primary Day...

...first of all I'm happy this day has come but I'm sure I'm not as happy as the Democrats are.

To say this state has completely torn at the core of the party is an understatement. As much as the Democrats claim to be a party of race and equity there's no denial that this state completely held up the same ol' barriers that people revert to when in a racially divided southern state like South Carolina.

If the goal was to get major turnout...well it's been successful. But the ultimate goal of presenting a unified party committed to improving the U.S. during its convention over the summer before going on a victory tour in the fall looks more and more unlikely.

Will Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton join hands in triumph a few months from now? Sure. But the fact remains that these two Senators, who I believed respected each other six months ago, have all but destroyed any personal relationship that may be needed in the future. And the party will need both Senators to succeed in the fall and in the future.

Meanwhile, today is primary day in South Carolina and I predict a slim Obama victory over Clinton with Edwards becoming more and more an afterthought. Some media outlets (actually just conservative pundit Bob Novak) are saying that he may drop out of the race sooner than later and start campaigning with Obama as a promise of a cabinet position awaits. And to be honest, if either Clinton or Obama take the White House, Edwards should be offered a prominent cabinet position.

So let's see how his one shakes out and see if better days are ahead.

For Giuliani: It's Florida or Bust...

....after receiving little love from his former hometown paper, Rudy Giuliani's strategy of running a 29-state primary campaign to prove he can run a 50-state national campaign might have possibly hit a snag in his first state of competition.

"America's mayor" is third in the Florida polls, where he's spent the last half dozen weeks campaigning, and is being victimized by the early bounces that Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and especially John McCain have received from primary victories in other states. If Rudy can't pull a rabbit out of his thinning hairline, his campaign will be over right before it was supposed to kick into overdrive.

As Wayne Barrett, Giuliani's biographer, puts it: "This may be the biggest tumble in election history - you'd have to look at Gary Hart for anything like it, and he had a blonde on his lap."

Meanwhile, with his back against the wall, Rudy reverts back to the one trick he knows -- talking about his 9-11 "heroics". Unfortunately Giuliani's greatest strength highlights his greatest weaknesses -- ignorance and stubborness.

"He did great things and some stupid things," said former New York Deputy Fire Chief Charles R. Blaich, who was a ground zero commander on Sept. 11 and later highlighted the handicaps that fire officials faced. "There's a lot there to admire. The problem is that when it came to a serious discussion about lessons learned, he didn't want any part of it."