News Roundup, 3/6/08: Recapping the Primary

Yesterday's news cycle was, predictably, all about the Tuesday primaries. As caucus numbers continued slowly rolling in (though final numbers will not be available any sooner than March 29), the media started taking a closer look at what states remained and what each campaign had to do to win. The answer was, effectively, that it was too close to call. Neither candidate can currently win on pledged delegates alone, so to some degree it will come down to superdelegates — a position the DNC doesn't want to see itself in, I'm sure.

With that in mind, it's little surprise that talk of Florida and Michigan getting their delegates is back in full force. The possibility had been floated earlier of the two states holding new contests to make up for the events they held earlier than DNC rules allowed for, which caused them to be stripped of their delegates. Josh predicted that we'd be hearing Terry McAuliffe use the word "disenfranchisement" at least once when referring to Florida and Michigan, and sure enough, he was right.

There was some news in local races as well. We took a look at some of the more interesting state rep results, and also got some numbers from the Chris Turner campaign about turnout in HD 96.

On the quieter Republican front, senator John McCain headed off yesterday to accept an endorsement from President Bush. In the following press conference, a reporter asked McCain — with Bush by his side — if Bush's endorsement was a positive or negative for him. He voiced support for the president, but it seemed to fall on deaf ears, as most pundits were asking the question of how McCain would go about representing the change that voters seem to be seeking in this election cycle.

Of course, he doesn't, considering his stances on the two largest issues to Americans — Iraq and the economy — and the tighter he ties himself to Bush, the more that becomes obvious. It is, in fact, obvious enough that there are YouTube ads on the subject.

Speculation has started to get heavy about McCain's possible VP choices now that he's clinched the Republican nomination. The New York Times lays out some possibilities.

And to close out the roundup, staff writer Curtis Rochelle presents a piece on Perry's moves over the past few months and how they point to what he might be doing for the next few years.