told reporters he meant no such offense. "I think very
highly of Senator Dole," he said, "but I do not think highly of
the mental set that says we should choose our nominee based on how
many years they've served and how long they've waited in line."
McCain rallied in Manhattan before flying to California, where
Romney hoped to upset him in the state offering the richest
delegate prize Tuesday. Nationally, opinion polls suggested McCain
had built an advantage over the former Massachusetts governor.
The tightness of the Democratic race and the sheer scale of the
voting in nearly two dozen states left the candidates wary of
making predictions as they offered last minute pitches.
"We're all kind of guessing about what it's all going to mean
because it's never happened before," Clinton said. She said she
found it all "intriguing and somewhat mystifying."
Obama said a "split decision" was likely. "I don't think
today's going to end up being decisive," he said.
A frigid rain fell in parts of the Northeast, part of a wintry
mess expected in the region, and voters braced for snow in a large
corridor from southwest Kansas to northern Michigan. A winter
onslaught was forecast in Illinois later in the day.
In Topsfield, Mass., where a steady stream of voters filed to a
polling place in a cold rain, teacher Marcia Spector, 58, made the
"very, very tough" decision to support Obama, reasoning he would
be more able than Clinton to win the presidency in the fall. "I
just feel that he is dynamic and he is for change," she said. "He
doesn't bring the baggage. I think he's more electable, actually."
It was tough, too, for Mary Jordan, 43, a teacher's aide - so
tough she didn't make up her mind until she was in the polling
booth. Voting Republican, she went for Romney, the state's former
governor, because of his business experience, while offering no one
a glowing endorsement. "I think he's the least unlikable," she
said. "I really didn't like any of them."
In Buffalo, N.Y., Paul Dissek, 63, waited alone in the fog
outside a library for the polling station to open. A year after
retiring from Bethlehem Steel, he lost his health coverage and pays
for it himself now. His choice: Clinton, who proposes to make
health insurance mandatory.
"I lost my health insurance with the steel plant," he said.
"I figure she'd be the one to get it."
The Iraq war was central to Kieth Anderson, 34, when he voted
for Obama at a Phoenix church. He's lost friends in the war and
wants others still serving to come home.
"I'm certain my friends will be back in a year if he's
elected."
Romney sought until the end to exploit the right's mistrust of
McCain, who opposed President Bush's tax cuts when they were
introduced, departed from orthodoxy on immigration, favors mandates
to slow global warming and led campaign finance reforms that
activists say trampled on their speech rights.
He told supporters at West Virginia's Republican nominating
convention Tuesday that McCain's support for global warming curbs
"would effectively kill coal," a lifeblood of the state.
"This is not a long shot," he said of his candidacy. "I am
the candidate who can stop John McCain."
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee focused on the South, his
continued candidacy an open question - as was Romney's viability if
he couldn't pull off surprises Tuesday.
Clinton voted near her home in Chappaqua, N.Y., accompanied by
husband Bill and daughter Chelsea. "You're a Democrat, right?"
election worker Evan Norris joked. "True blue" she responded,
laughing. She said of Super Tuesday: "The stakes are huge."
In Illinois, Obama supporters expressed pride for the home-state
senator as they voted. "We have something great to vote for
today," said Catherine Braendel, 44, a marketing consultant who
lives down the street from Obama in Chicago.
Heather Holliday, 28, a Chicago sales executive, credited McCain
with wisdom earned as a prisoner of war in Vietnam and as a
lawmaker who looks at both sides of an issue.
"He understands war better than the others," she said. "He's
been through hell and back." McCain "understands what it is not
to be safe."
Her comments spoke to McCain's appeal to Republican moderates
and independent voters. But he's struggled to close the sale with
his party's base after coming strikingly far without its solid
support. "I will preserve my proud conservative Republican
credentials" while extending a practiced hand to Democrats, he
promised.
After months when it was all about expectations and momentum,
not to mention confusion, real numbers finally became important.
The two dozen contests Tuesday were delivering 1,023 Republican
and 1,681 Democratic delegates. The number needed to win the
nomination: 1,191 Republican and 2,025 Democratic.
John Edwards' departure after South Carolina's primary
simplified the math but little else on the Democratic side.
Since winning that state, Obama has collected a succession of
marquee endorsements - several of them named Kennedy - and pulled
into a statistical tie with Clinton in a national poll and in
California, Tuesday's biggest prize with 370 Democratic delegates.
The two were campaigning for history as well - Clinton seeking
to become the first female president, Obama the first black one.
Little separates them on most issues, including universal health
coverage, ending U.S. military involvement in Iraq and raising
taxes on the rich. And neither has accounted fully for all their
proposed spending.
Instead, the campaign has turned on her experience and his
vision of change, debated intensely but with more civility in the
latest round than when former President Clinton, purposefully or
not, brought racial sensitivities to the surface in stumping for
his wife.
Party rules were stacked against a Tuesday knockout for
Democrats. All their primaries and caucuses were awarding delegates
proportionately, so coming in second counted. In the Republican
field, nine contests offered all delegates to the winner.
---
Associated Press writers Carolyn Thompson, Don Babwin, Dave
Carpenter, Ashley M. Heher Jim Fitzgerald, Beth Fouhy, Glen
Johnson, Jim Kuhnhenn, Nedra Pickler, Libby Quaid and Liz Sidoti
contributed to this report.
(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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