Bush, Gore close to clinching nominations
By BRIGID SWEENEY
News Writer
After months of stump speeches and a week of especially furious campaigning, today may be a day of reckoning for the four major presidential candidates as 16 states hold primaries and caucuses.
While the race for delegates in both parties has been heated throughout, Vice President Al Gore and Texas Governor George Bush are poised to take commanding leads in their respective races and could potentially garner enough delegates today to all but win the nomination contests, according to Notre Dame government professor Peri Arnold.
Though Arizona Sen. John McCain could win nearly all of New England and other key states, including New York, Bush will likely come out victorious in the Republican race, experts predicted.
"He should emerge with somewhere in the high 600s to the low 800s in delegates," Senator Paul Coverdell (R-Ga.), a Bush supporter, told the Washington Post on Sunday. These delegates, in addition to the 340 expected on March 14, place Bush close to the 1034 needed for nomination.
McCain lost to Bush on Feb. 29 in Virginia and Washington, and has been on the defensive since. Some of his problems stem from last week's attack on leaders of the religious right, which alienated potential supporters, according to Arnold.
"The attacks hurt McCain politically because 28 percent of Republicans identify with the religious right," he said. "McCain has been very hot — he amazingly found a language of reform that gels different groups, from moderate Republicans to independents to loosely-connected Democrats, but then he got stymied in these attacks."
Arnold said McCain's reformist appeal will make the senator a threat in today's contests, though the odds remain in Bush's favor.
"I think McCain remains dangerous," Arnold said. "In California, we could see the extraordinary result of McCain winning the popular vote while Bush actually takes the primary. An embarrassed Bush would slog on to the nomination, but it would be a signal that he doesn't have the centrist votes needed to win in November."
Such a split decision in California is possible because its primary is open to all parties, but delegates are determined only by Republican votes. McCain, therefore, could hypothetically win the popular vote, with the support of independents and Democrats crossing over to vote for him, yet Bush would take the 162 delegates by winning the votes of registered Republicans.
On the Democratic front, former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley continues to lag far behind Gore, trailing the vice president in every state.
After losing to Gore in the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary, Bradley was dealt another defeat last Tuesday, when he lost Washington's non-binding primary, a contest he had chosen as a testing point for a comeback.
"Bradley simply did not run a very effective campaign," Arnold said. "Tactically, he failed to win people over. Strategically, he made bad choices — why did he stay for Washington state's `beauty contest' when he should have been campaigning in New York, where he once had a chance? He just doesn't get it."
Furthermore, McCain's broad appeal detracted from Bradley's campaign, according to Arnold.
"It was beyond Bradley's control," he said. "He couldn't predict that McCain's appeal would overlap with his. They both attract the moderates, those who aren't core partisans, and McCain's campaign clearly was more successful."
Today's Super Tuesday contests reflect the greatest number of delegates and states decided in a single day since primaries began to play a crucial role in presidential candidate selection 48 years ago.
Democrats will choose 1315 delegates, 61 percent of the 2170 necessary for nomination. Republicans will similarly pick 59 percent of the majority needed, or 613 delegates.
Although today's results will likely seal nominations in both parties, Arnold stressed that the losers will continue to have an impact, especially on the Republican side.
"Even if Bush comes out on top, McCain's attacks on him will continue to hurt," he said. "The Democrats will recycle McCain's criticisms of Bush's corrupt fundraising, among other things. Bush has a big job ahead of him in keeping his head above water."
All News Stories for Tuesday, March 7, 2000
