Different post-Super Tuesday scenarios are under speculation as 24 U.S. states and American Samoa began voting early this morning in primaries and caucuses for the presidential nomination race.
On Feb. 5, a total of more than 1,600 of the total 4,049 Democratic delegates to the national nomination convention and almost 950 of the 2,380 Republican delegates will be allocated in what is almost a national primary.
However, U.S. media and political analysts are still debating whether Super Tuesday could bring the nomination race to an end.
On the Democratic side, caught in a close tie with Illinois Senator Barack Obama, New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and her team are poised to continue her campaign after Super Tuesday.
"The nominating rules of our party are really designed to prolong a contest between two strong candidates," spokesman Howard Wolfson for Clinton told reporters.
To become a Democratic presidential nominee, a candidate has to win at least 2,025 delegates, a winning majority of the total that will attend the party's National Convention in Denver, Colorado in late August.
Out of the total number, 3,253 delegates are elected or chosen at the state and local level but they are not actually bound to vote for the candidate.
The party uses proportional representation to decide how many pledged delegates are awarded to each candidate.
The rest are the "super-delegates" who are usually automatically obtained by the party's senior members and officials.
Obama's campaign outlined its goal in the face of Clinton's strong lead in many of the 22 states holding Democratic contests.
"If Obama wins a few (states) and stays within 100 delegates of Clinton on Tuesday, we will have met our threshold for success," his campaign manager David Plouffe said in a memo, indicating a later showdown with Clinton.
On the Republican side, because of the "winner-take-all" rule applied to many of the 21 states holding Tuesday races, especially those delegate-rich big states, Arizona Senator John McCain's double-digit lead over former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney is expected to widen, which will solidify his status as the most likely presidential nominee.
Whoever is nominated by a majority of delegates, 1,191 or more, at the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis, Minnesota in early September, will contend in the national election for the party.
Until now, McCain led the Republican camp with 97 delegates in hand, followed by Romney with 92 delegates and former Arkansas governor Huckabee with 29, the CNN said.
Supported by super delegates, Clinton exceeded Obama in the competition for delegates by 232 to 158, although she obtained 48 delegates by winning state primaries and caucuses, 15 fewer than Obama, according to CNN.
Even though any candidate's lead on Super Tuesday clearly reveals that it is strong enough to carry him or her to the nomination convention, CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider said the post-Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses are likely to offer a setting for the final phase of the nomination process.
"Past campaigns have seen a reverse bandwagon effect. When a candidate gets close to winning the nomination, the bandwagon doesn't speed up. It slows down," Schneider said. "Voters in the late primaries say, 'Oh my god! What have we done.'"
Foreseeing this possibility, Romney and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee insisted that they will stay in the race to await the final winner even if McCain prevails on Super Tuesday.
The biggest primary day in U.S. history began at 1100 GMT Tuesday as voters cast their ballots in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. It will wrap up as the last voting closes in California 17 hours later at 0400 GMT Wednesday, leaving candidates a long day to await the results that could decide their fates on their road to the White House.
Source: Xinhua
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