The results are in!

Super Tuesday is over, and the results are.....inconclusive, at least on the Democratic side. Obama won more states, but Clinton won more delegates because she won the big states like New York and California. Obama primarily won states where there were caucuses and seems to have made some gains among whites, but women by and large voted for Clinton. Sure, as a woman I'd love to see a woman break the ultimate glass ceiling and win the Presidency, but I don't want to see a Clinton restoration. I think we need something new, so I'm currently supporting Obama even though critics say he lacks experience. Well, history has proven that experience is not a prerequisite for becoming President. Lincoln had served an indistinguished term in the House of Representatives before he became President, and served during this country's most turbulent period, and did so brilliantly. So I don't buy the "experience" argument one bit. And anyway, presidential candidates can make as many promises as they like, but they can't do a darn thing without being able to work with Congress, so promises that candidates make are mostly empty because without being able to work with legislators, it's all a bunch of bunk anyway. A president can't deliver on promises made all by him or herself, as anybody with any amount of brains knows. So candidates can make their stump speeches and present all kinds of attractive sound bytes, but in the end, it's just words. Call me a cynic, but I've heard these kinds of words and promises made before and I just don't buy that anybody can deliver the goods when push comes to shove.

So the results of who won what are as follows: Obama won Connecticut, Alabama, Georgia, Alaska, Colorado, Delaware, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, North Dakota and Utah to Clinton's wins in California, New York, Massachusetts, Arizona, Arkansas, New Jersey, Oklahoma and Tennessee. Clinton has 590 pledged delegates to Obama's 603, but Clinton has 193 super-delegates to Obama's 106. Clinton's total delegate count is 783 to Obama's 709, so it's a virtual neck-and-neck race between those two, meaning that Ohio is really going to come into play come March 4th because it's considered to be a big prize in the presidential election. Governor Strickland has endorsed Clinton and she's got a comfortable lead in this state, but Obama is slowly making inroads and needs to court the college aged and young voters if he's got any chance of overcoming Clinton's main base of low-educated blue collar workers. Obama's primary appeal is among higher income and better educated people and he hasn't been able to make the inroads among the blue collar crowd that Clinton has been able to make, and let's face it, these folks have been the traditional base of the Democratic Party.

So anything goes in this election, and all the big prizes are still up for grabs. I just hope that Obama can pull out some big wins in the upcoming primaries, because the only thing that a Clinton nomination will succeed in doing is to push independent voters over to the McCain banner, and let's face it, they comprise a healthy chunk of the electorate these days. There is such utter hatred of Hillary and anything Clinton among some voters, even Democrats, that they will vote for McCain before they vote for Hillary. And that's the one thing we need to avoid, electing McCain by default because of anti-Clinton sentiment. And the only hope we have of avoiding that is to get out the young voters and get them out of their beer soaked parties, off the couches, off their iPods and into polling places. They have everything to lose by a McCain victory, and everything to gain by an Obama victory. I just hope that they realize the significance of this election, which is being called the most important presidential election since 1968. And that's saying a lot.