Neck and Neck but Miles Apart

For a race that seems primed to go down to the wire, the contest for the Democratic nomination sure has some wild variations. As you're well aware, yesterday's Democratic Super Tuesday votes took place in twenty-two states: Obama won thirteen to Clinton's nine. New Mexico, which took a long time to be decided in Hillary's favor, was very tight, as was Obama's upset in Missouri. Obama also unexpectedly won Connecticut, so the vote totals there were fairly close, as well. But except for Arizona, which Clinton won by nine percentage points, every single other contest--all eighteen of them--went to the victor by double-digit margins.

No, I have no idea what it means. But if the race for the nomination is such a toss up, shouldn't Clinton be pulling in more than 17 percent in Idaho? Or Obama doing better than 31 percent in Oklahoma? Nationally, the contest couldn't get much closer, but in these eighteen contests yesterday--82 percent of the states in play--the winner walked away in a landslide (and again, that's only counting the double-digit wins; Arizona's nine points, which would be considered a landslide under normal circumstances, is small potatoes here). And it was as evenly divided between the winners as the total contests themselves: Clinton and Obama each won two squeakers, while Obama triumphed in eleven landslides to Clinton's seven. Wouldn't it be more reasonable to expect that, if one candidate were getting blowouts in some states, the other would just be winning by narrow margins. But no, no matter which way a state goes, Clinton or Obama, it goes with a vengeance. My blog reading may not be wide and eclectic enough, but I haven't noticed anyone else commenting on this. If anybody's got any insight into this situation, I'm eager to hear it.