LiveWire

The Dems and Repubs both have contests in DC, Virginia, and Maryland.

Politico previews the Dem race with Clinton badly needs Virginia victory. While CNN takes a look at where McCain and Huckabee stand.

All polls have McCain up large in Maryland, but take a look at the surge Huckabee shows for Virginia, up 12 points in what looks like 48 hours. He’s still behind McCain, but the issue become the depressed Repub vote. How many people will actually go out to vote affecting the end result? My point on Tammy Radio has been to remind you that Huckabee is not winning because suddenly independent conservatives have forgotten his obscene Arkansas tax hike or his pardons and commutations of rapists and murderers. Nope, many Indie Conservs seem to be staying home, allowing the Huckanuts and the anti-McCain vote to push Huckabee over the top.

Well, we shall see.

Drudge is also running a big, red headline with a story from the NYT which asserts the idea that Clinton is finished unless she wins Ohio and Texas on March 4th. That’s bunk. Her pride and ego will not allow her to step away, and Obama knows he will lose her supporters if, for some inexplicable reason, she does bail. If one of them goes unceremoniously, their supporters will go as well. The need each other, and the only person who’s ego would allow the Veep slot is Obama. Keep in mind, after she cried wolf about money issues and “loaned” her campaign $5 mil, she pulled in $10 mil in 72 hours. Perhaps she’ll find more whining will result in more votes, too.

Interesting, isn’t it, that Clinton has resorted to victimhood behavior in order to promote a candidacy that’s supposed to be about women overcoming the odds. Hillary Clinton, in fact the entire Democratic campaign environment, with its division over race especially, is now simply cannibalizing itself tail-up.

In additional news, McCain has turned down federal matching funds.

John McCain will turn down government matching funds for his primary campaign, a move that frees the Arizona senator and campaign finance reform advocate from spending caps…McCain had asked to participate in the system, in a last ditch effort to keep his cash-poor campaign alive. In December, the FEC said he was eligible for $5.8 million. But had he accepted that money, McCain would have only been allowed to spend about $54 million total on his primary campaign, according to the Associated Press.

McCain is still eligible to accept federal matching funds for his general election campaign.

So much for finance reform and trying to control the cash that pollutes the process.

And just a little technical aside re the delegate system to add to your bucket of info, swiped from CNN:

There are currently 4,049 total delegates to the Democratic National Convention, including 3,253 pledged delegates and 796 superdelegates. The total number of delegate votes needed to win the nomination is 2,025. There are currently 2,380 total delegates to the Republican National Convention, including 1,917 pledged delegates and 463 unpledged delegates. The total number of delegate votes needed to win the nomination is 1,191.