With the Democratic Party’s nomination for president yet to be decided, Sen. John McCain swept the four March 4 primaries and clinched his party’s nomination for the presidency.
McCain’s victory affirmed a weeklong belief in the inevitability of his nomination and effectively ended the Republican Party’s primary election season with his last remaining rival, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, withdrawing from the race Tuesday evening.
“I am very, very grateful and pleased to note that tonight, my friends, we have won enough delegates to claim with confidence, humility and a great sense of responsibility, that I will be the Republican nominee for president of the United States,” McCain said, accepting the role as his party’s standard-bearer.
For the Democratic Party, however, the race will continue with Sen. Hillary Clinton’s victories in the primaries in Ohio, Rhode Island and Texas, and that of Sen. Barack Obama in Vermont.
As of press time, the results of the Texas Democratic caucus, which is held subsequent to the Texas primary, were undetermined. In the state, two-thirds of pledged delegates are awarded based on the results of the primary and one-third on the basis of caucus results.
Tuesday’s elections were considered especially important for the Clinton campaign, which, before that night, had suffered a string of 11 consecutive losses to Obama.
“For everyone here in Ohio and across America who’s ever been counted out but refused to be knocked out, for everyone who has stumbled but stood right back up, and for everyone who works hard and never gives up, this one is for you,” said Clinton while addressing her supporters in the state’s capital.
With speculation among the media, the public and even some members of the Clinton campaign that Clinton losses in Ohio and Texas would effectively end her candidacy, her victories allow her campaign to continue without appearing unfeasible.
“Tonight’s win for Sen. Clinton was huge. In the grander scheme of things it probably didn’t mean that much, but she stopped Barack Obama’s forward momentum, and it demonstrated that she still has it ““ that she can win in big states and that she can beat Barack Obama when she needs to,” said Matt Klink, executive vice president at Cerrell Associates, a Los Angeles-based political consulting firm.
With Tuesday’s results and the Democratic Party’s system of awarding delegates proportionally, neither candidate has yet won the required 2,025 delegates in order to become the Party’s nominee. But, as a result of his earlier successes, Obama continues to hold a lead in the delegate count, despite Clinton’s successes.
“We know this: No matter what happens tonight, we have nearly the same delegate lead as we did this morning, and we are on our way to winning this nomination,” Obama said.
With such a tight race, the role of superdelegates, who have yet to officially decide who they will support, will become increasingly important ““ as perhaps will the currently discounted delegates of Michigan and Florida.
“If it is very close, I don’t think anyone will know what will happen, because that sort of situation hasn’t arisen in a while,” said Jeffrey Lewis, associate professor of political science.
But with Obama’s lead in pledged delegates and the long interval between Tuesday’s voting and the next big primary contest, it will be increasingly difficult for Clinton to overcome his lead.
“The electoral map is becoming more and more difficult as time goes on. The biggest tragedy for Clinton is that she can’t do anything with these victories for the next seven weeks, because the next big primary is not until April 22, in Pennsylvania,” Klink said.
The Republican nomination, on the other hand, had been considered all but decided after McCain’s victories on Super Tuesday and the subsequent resignation from the race of his closest rival, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
But with Huckabee’s refusal to exit the race after Super Tuesday, despite the virtual mathematical impossibility of his winning the nomination, McCain was forced to continue his campaign into March.
“Tonight was (McCain’s) coronation as the Republican nominee for president in 2008. The biggest problem for him now is, how do you stay relevant in the general public eye when there is a hotly and fiercely contested Democratic Party primary that everyone wants to know who will win,” Klink said.
On Tuesday, Huckabee conceded his losses and withdrew from the Republican race, allowing McCain to begin the transition to running in the general election.
“It is now important that we turn our attention not to what could have been or what we wanted to have been, but now what must be, and that is a united party,” Huckabee said.
That unification of the Republican Party may be seen Wednesday morning, with President Bush’s expected endorsement of McCain to succeed him as the 44th President of the United States.