The Happy People....and the Romney People (Super Tuesday Review)

In arguably the most historic "Super Tuesday" ever, there still isn't an official nomination from both sides of the party, and the voting system is still a mess. That voting mess is indicative of the struggle of many college area kids in Boston and anywhere else where out of town students are located.

First off, in regards to the collegiate young men and women of this country (particularly in Massachusetts), if you didn't want to do the absentee votes in this country, then you better had registed (i.e sent that letter application type form) before my birthday, January 16. Because I didn't, and I payed for it.

I had to do a provisional vote, which is basically saying, unless the race is Florida 2000 type close, we are dumping this in the trash. Now technically, that is not what the rule says of course, and that is not how Massachusetts or any state does their business like that. If they did, they would be conspicuously reckless and ridiculous. But basically, their actual actions are not totally different from that assessment with these "provisional votes."

Most likely, a lot of students from here at BU, BC, Harvard, MIT, Northeastern, Tufts, Weselyean had to endure this situation, or missed the deadline to send an absentee ballot to their home states. This obviously was a blow to all candidates but most noticeably Barack Obama of course, who suffered a "surprising beating" in Massachusetts to Hilary Clinton considering these two other things in his favor: The endorsements of Ted Kennedy, Deval Patrick, and John Kerry, and the state having the $50,000 or higher salary making Democrats (a group who has supported him immensely everywhere so far).

Though Massachusetts was always an uphill battle from the get go (Clinton was leading by over 15% at points last year), this was expected to be a lot closer with all those other factors making me believe Obama had an outside shot. Whether the 56% to 41% victory from Clinton was always and forever will be a Clinton strong hold as a reason for the decisive victory (New Jersey was closer for Obama than Massachusetts) or some other matters that would be unfortunate if voters selected the way the did, the "Bay State" may have been the most disappointing result for the Obama party, though he did garner 37 delegates in the state.

Second, and even more disturbing the first topic of discussion, is the ballot in Massachusetts yesterday. As you see in the picture above, how in the hell is John Edwards, Bill Richardson, and others still on the ballot (the same happen with the Republicans with the likes of Rudy Giuliani and Frd Thompson on their ballot)? It was reported from some sources that Edwrads received 600 votes in the Boston area, costing Obama the vote in the city to Clinton. In fact, despite just getting 2% of the vote in the state, the former North Carolina Senator still got 19,889 vote despite announcing himself out the race last Wednesday.

Only in this country.

On the GOP side, somewhere today in Massachusetts, there is this particular type of person: A fan of the New England Patriots and a supporter of Mitt Romney. Let's just say that unless something positive happened in that respective person's individual life, he or she is having one hell filled start to their week.

The former governor of "Bay State" showed a night just as rough as Bill Belichick, Tom Brady and comapny. And through he'll continue to press on unlike them for another day, it is most likely over for him. For not only did John McClain strengthed his lead to insurmontable propotions last night with big wins in California and the winner take all delegate state of Missouri, but with Mike Huckabee's brilliance performance last night the affluent Romney had a disastrous evening on all accounts. By not establishing himself as the different conservative alternative to McClain, Romney was the biggest loser of the night, signaling a possible end to who the GOP nomination will be.

In the all important "Golden State", Romney only won 3 out of 119 delegates, a massive disappointment and an embarrassment to him and his campaign team. Despite having the most money of all on the GOP side, Romney failed to get conservatives in California aganist McClain and suffered heavily for that. The 1996 Olympic organizer and his camp thought that they needed over 400 delegates by the end of the night.

But with a measly 270 delegates compared to the massive 680 that the Arizona Senator has, Romney was devastated by not only McClain's momentum by the doggeg spirit of Mike Huckabee, the other guy he probably abominates the most today. Huckabee got the evangeliscals and any other voters that didn't want those "two top candidates" to vote for him and his near impoverished campaign (comapredto Romney of course). He was a force in the South, and if he didn't get nipped by McClain in Missouri, he would have been just 13 delegates behind Romney, with far less resources.

In short, despite John McClain now with his finger tips on the nomination, the real winner on Super Tuesday was Mike Huckabee last night.