Super Voting Tuesday begins

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton fought for front-runner status in a tightening Democratic contest, while Republican John McCain hoped to bury rival Mitt Romney's presidential hopes in voting from Alaska to the Atlantic on Super Tuesday, the biggest primary day in U.S. history.

The vote is almost a national primary: each party was holding contests in more than 20 states, including some of the most populous, such as California and New York. At stake are about half the delegates who will choose a nominee at party conventions in August and September.

Clinton, the New York senator and wife of former President Bill Clinton, was long seen as the inevitable Democratic candidate with double-digit leads in the polls just weeks ago. Her supporters had expected that she would lock up the nomination with big wins on Super Tuesday.
But Obama, a first-term Illinois senator campaigning on a theme of hope and change, has narrowed her lead to little or nothing in the latest national and individual state polls.

Neither candidate was expected to emerge from Super Tuesday as the presumptive nominee. Clinton and Obama each hoped to win the majority of delegates at stake and claim front-runner status heading into the next rounds of state primaries and caucuses.

With so many states casting votes, Democrats were spending unprecedented amounts of money on television advertising. Clinton and Obama each poured more than $1 million a day into TV ads in the last week alone.

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Obama discusses Super Tuesday
Feb. 5: Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama talks with TODAY's Matt Lauer about the Super Tuesday vote.

Today show
Clinton turned talk-show host Monday night, buying an hour of time on the cable television Hallmark Channel to televise a town hall meeting from New York in the Super Tuesday states. With husband Bill and daughter Chelsea on camera in other locations, she took questions from voters beamed in from far-flung locales.Obama campaigned with Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and his niece, Caroline Kennedy, in New Jersey at the IZOD Center, next to the home of the New York Giants, who posted one of the biggest upsets in Super Bowl history, defeating the previously unbeaten New England Patriots on Sunday night."Sometimes the underdog pulls it out," Obama said. "You can't always believe the pundits and prognosticators."

The electoral territory was vast and so were the stakes. Romney, his Republican bid on the line, logged more than 5,000 miles in a 37-hour coast-to-coast dash as he tried to block McCain from wrapping up the nomination. McCain led by double digits in national polls, but some surveys showed Romney gaining ground in delegate-rich California.

"I think you're going to see a growing crescendo of Republican conservatives getting behind my candidacy," the former Massachusetts governor said. But he conceded: "Right now that hasn't entirely happened."

McCain struggled to close the sale with his party's conservative base after coming strikingly far without its solid support in a remarkable comeback for a candidate whose hopes appeared dashed just months ago.

Snow a factor
Weather was iffy in some places. A wintry mess including snow and ice was forecast for New England, and snow was forecast for a large corridor from southwest Kansas to northern Michigan.

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."

'Republican credentials'
"I will preserve my proud conservative Republican credentials" while extending a practiced hand to Democrats, McCain promised.

Romney sought until the end to exploit the right's mistrust of McCain, a veteran Arizona senator who opposed President George W. Bush's tax cuts when they were introduced, advocated a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, favors mandates to slow global warming and led campaign finance reforms that activists say trampled on their speech rights.McCain struck back Monday with a television ad that showed Romney in a 1994 Senate campaign debate against Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, saying he was "an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush. I'm not trying to return to Reagan-Bush."

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister, focused on the South, where he enjoys support from Christian conservatives.

McCain could finish first in several Southern and border states - Alabama, Georgia, Oklahoma and Missouri - with Huckabee and Romney splitting the conservative vote.

Video
Clinton discusses Super Tuesday
Feb. 5: Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton talks with TODAY's Meredith Vieira about Super Tuesday.

Today show

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's decision to quit the race and endorse McCain after Florida's primary has given the Arizona senator a boost in Northeastern states where there are many moderate Republicans.

McCain, a former Vietnam prisoner-of-war who has campaigned on his national security experience, would be a formidable rival for either Obama or Clinton because of his appeal to independents. "I can lead this nation and motivate all Americans to serve a cause greater than their self-interest," he said Monday.

Democratic prospects of winning the White House are high, given Americans' dissatisfaction with President George W. Bush and his handling of the economy and the Iraq war.

The contests in two dozen states 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. So far, the AP puts Clinton's delegate tally at 261 while Obama has 196. Among Republicans, McCain has 102 delegates while Romney has 93.

Former North Carolina Sen. 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 _ including several members of the Kennedy family - 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 commander-in-chief.

Little separates them on most issues, including universal health coverage, ending U.S. military involvement in Iraq and raising taxes on the rich. Instead, the campaign has turned on her experience and his vision of change.

Party rules were stacked against a Tuesday knockout for Democrats. All their 22 primaries and caucuses were awarding delegates proportionally, so coming in a strong second counted. In the Republican field, nine of the 21 contests offered all the delegates to the winner.