Super Tuesday V: California and the rest of them

David Weigel | February 5, 2008

California closed at 11 p.m., and as projected, there's no winner in either primary yet. Alaska closes in two and a half hours, the rest of the caucuses are trickling in, so you can discuss them here. If the "Obama and Romney win all caucuses" pattern persists, Obama and Romney will win.

The network coverage of this has been pretty inscrutable: We are told that delegate-rich states in the northeast are big wins for Clinton even though every Democratic state will award its delegates proportionately. Similarly, we're watching Mitt Romney get his head handed to him when his best states (except Massachusetts) are simply coming a little later and he's in competition for California. I think newspapers, with their longer lead times and without the rush to get on air and start sharing opinions, are going to report a Democratic split (Obama is winning more states than Clinton, she's won the big ones) and a three-way Republican race with Romney mulling his next move and Huckabee blowing his trumpet.