A Democratic Muddle

As the sun finally rose on Super Tuesday, the Democratic presidential candidates scrambled to make their last-minute pitches to voters across the country. From her home in Chappaqua, N.Y., Sen. Hillary Clinton barreled through one interview after another—some 30 in all, ranging from local radio stations to TV morning shows. The grueling campaign had clearly taken its toll: her voice was hoarse and her expression enervated, and she coughed so much during an interview with an Oakland TV station that it had to be cut short (after nursing her vocal cords with tea and honey, she picked up where she left off). Up in Boston, Sen. Barack Obama worked through his own procession of media appearances, knocking off 15 TV and three radio interviews before boarding a flight to Chicago. Later, addressing reporters at an elementary school where he and his wife voted, Obama could have been speaking for both campaigns. "I think everybody is flying blind on this one," he said. "We've got 22 states and nobody can keep track of it."

Now that those states have had their say, things don't look much clearer. Late Tuesday night, Clinton was projected to win Arkansas, Arizona, California, Massachusetts (by a surprisingly large margin, given the endorsement of Obama by Sen. Ted Kennedy), Oklahoma, New York, New Jersey and Tennessee. Obama, for his part, was expected to carry Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota and Utah. (New Mexico hadn't yet been called.) Yet as both campaigns have repeated incessantly, their contest is a fight for delegates, some 1,700 of which were at stake on Tuesday night (2,025 are needed to win). Because they're allocated proportionally, though, neither candidate is expected to pull significantly ahead of the other. "I look forward to continuing our campaign and our debate about how to leave this country better off for the next generation," Clinton told supporters at a rally in New York. A short while later, Obama addressed his backers in Chicago. "We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek," he said. "What began as a whisper has now swelled to a chorus that cannot be ignored."

Beyond the fight for delegates, though, is a far less tangible battle: one over perception. In the buildup to Super Tuesday, Obama's candidacy seemed to be surging. He scored a series of high-profile endorsements, he raised about $32 million in January, his celebrity-studded campaign events took on the character of religious revivals and he was quickly gaining on Clinton in the polls. Tuesday night's results, Clinton's advisers argue, managed to slow, if not block, that momentum. "We had to listen to two weeks of 'Oh, you're not having rallies, you're not appearing with celebrities, you're having these boring discussions about issues'," said one adviser who didn't want to be on the record appearing to gloat.

The campaign was especially gleeful about Clinton's victory in Massachusetts, where Obama benefited from the highly coveted endorsement of Sen. Edward Kennedy, as well as that of Sen. John Kerry and Gov. Deval Patrick. Late deciders went mostly for Clinton, advisers pointed out—proof, they argued, that voters, unlike the media, are not blinded by Obama's star appeal. The Clinton team also celebrated her victories in Republican states like Arkansas, Oklahoma and Tennessee. "This proves Hillary Clinton can win anywhere in the country," said campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe. "The voters finally got tired of the pundits and prognosticators telling them how they were going to vote."

Obama's side had its own triumphs to savor. One that was especially sweet: Missouri. Just before Obama bounded on stage in Chicago, the Clinton campaign released a statement touting her victory in the bellwether state of Missouri. "Hillary's Big Night Continues," it read. Problem was, Obama ended up winning the state. In the rear of the Chicago ballroom, Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, who endorsed Obama, clapped and cheered at the turnaround. "People are getting to know Barack Obama," she told NEWSWEEK. "The story that needs to come out of tonight is that this was supposed to be the end. This was going to wrap it up for Senator Clinton." Yet as Obama senior strategist David Axelrod put it, "We took on the big bad machine that was going to finish us off on Feb. 5 and they didn't."

Looking ahead, the Obama camp remains optimistic. For one thing, the day's results put to rest some key arguments against his candidacy. He won Connecticut, Delaware and Colorado, where independents weren't allowed to vote, thus proving that he could win without them. And he captured a healthy 44 percent of the Hispanic vote in Arizona, showing he could make inroads in a constituency that has largely aligned itself with Clinton. Now, the Obama campaign argues, Clinton's strongest states—including New York, New Jersey and California—are behind her. "We always thought she had an advantage today," said campaign manager David Plouffe. "As we started planning this, Feb. 5 was always a tough hill to climb. Now we move on to what we thought was always a more favorable part of the calendar."