Brace yourselves.
Yes and no.
Today 24 states hold their primaries. A total of 3156 delegates will be handed out today and the race might be settled on the republican side, but it probably won't. So remember that even though there is currently shitloads of hype about this day it isn't as important as it seems. There are more primaries and caucuses on the way.
But what happened? A few weeks ago there were many candidates and suddenly there is only a handful. And many speculate about Edwards dropping out before "Super Tuesday", which is when he might have expected to win perhaps a few southern states. Or at least see how he was doing overall. So now experts are looking into his drop-out for reasons. Many say, and I tend to agree, that his early withdrawal was to support Obama, so that anybody who might be split between him and Obama wouldn't have a trouble choosing. However in his announcement he failed to make a endorsement - why? He simply mentioned that it'll be a historic race, but historic for African-American history or feminist-history?
The interesting thing with Edwards is that he might have been the true candidate for change. Not Obama. At least for economic change and for the strengthening of labor-unions etc. Because he came from a poor family, his father worked hard. And Edwards ran the campaign on government funded money, which means he couldn't accept any outside contributions, and it also meant less money. And less money meant less publicity. Which was a big error on his part, as he needed shitloads of more publicity when running against the Clintons and charismatic little intellectual called Obama who also happened to be from a black&white family. And it really is the media that killed his campaign. Nobody took Obama seriously a year ago, but the media gave him slightly more media time, as some kind of curiosity to look at to see how he did. And now look. And the media dubbed Obamas campaign as "grass-roots" - but his campaign raised over $32 million in January (compared to Clintons $13.5 million). Grass-roots my fucking ass. And I'd like to point out that everybody is talking about how the United States are finally ready to accept an African-American or a woman to be president and that tolerance is really starting to be natural... But thats not how I see it. It isn't until we start having say, presidential elections, were the voters and the media look at the candidates opinions and debate about that that tolerance has really set in. I.e. Not until gender and race are non-issues to be pointed out, when we no longer notice these things, that we can say that we are truly tolerant.
And on the republican side Guliani, "Americas Mayor", dropped out after a bad campaign strategy. He put all his effort into Florida - claiming Florida to be a micro-cosmos, a miniature of the States as a whole. And he lost. He was also clearly leading the polls last summer, before the campaigning got started, but then he started talking about all that he had done, instead of what he could do. And so he pimped his reputation gained from 9/11 and people got disgusted with him.
So what should one look for tonight? Where to? Well California is the big prize for both parties, as it is delegate rich. And Obama and Clinton are close to each other here. Very close. If Clinton can keep her popularity among the latino population she could take it (as she did in Nevada and Florida). And New York is also another interesting democratic battle-ground. NY is Clinton country, but it also has a huge minority.
And for the Republicans the one to watch is Mitt Romney. He has to win now to be able to actually fight for the nomination. But McCain seems to lead, and with quite some headway too. But to Romneys benefit Mike Huckabee, the gun crazy preacher, is still in the race. And Huckabee has one function for Romney and that is to split votes with McCain to Romneys advantage. But Huckabee might also win the "bible-belt", in which case he would still be a strong contender.
I'm looking forward to reading the results tomorrow.
Peace&Love,
-zS
P.S. If you are confused about this night I recommend reading the following article: "24-State Battle for Votes, Delegates and Momentum" - it has a good run through of what has happened so far, and what is the big picture.