Clinton struggles to hold off Obama before Super Tuesday

McCain projected confidence Monday, not only about wrapping up the nomination but about next November’s general election as well.

“I can lead this nation and motivate all Americans to serve a cause greater than their self-interest,” he said while campaigning at a fire station in New Jersey.

Democrats have strong prospects of winning the White House in November, given the weak U.S. economy, the ongoing bloodshed in Iraq and President George W. Bush’s low popularity. But McCain could be their most formidable opponent because he draws support from independent voters.

Yet many Republicans remain wary of McCain, questioning the senator’s conservative credentials because of his reputation as a maverick and his stance backing a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. Romney has tried, so far unsuccessfully, to tap into those doubts.

“We’re going to hand the liberals in our party a little surprise,” boasted Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, predicting he would score an upset in delegate-rich California.

McCain struck back later Monday with a television ad that showed Romney in a 1994 debate against Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, saying he was “an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush. I’m not trying to return to Reagan-Bush.” Unwilling to leave anything to chance, both men hastily rearranged their schedules to make one more late stop in California, the largest prize with 170 delegates. Contrary to the national polls, some surveys showed Romney gaining ground in California and he hoped for an upset there to keep his candidacy alive.

Romney arrived Monday night in California for a rally with 1,000 cheering supporters in Long Beach after campaigning earlier in the day in the southern states of Tennessee and Georgia.

The Democratic contest has turned into a historic race between Clinton, who is trying to become the first woman to win the White House, and Obama, seeking to become the first black president.

The two split the early primaries and caucuses. But few delegates were at stake in those contests, which were mostly about building momentum and establishing front-runners. Starting Tuesday, the focus will be on the delegate count. A total of 1,681 delegates are at stake for Obama and Clinton in Tuesday’s races, and 2,025 delegates are needed to win the Democratic nomination. So far, the AP puts Clinton’s delegate tally at 261 while Obama has 196.

With so many states casting votes, Democrats were spending unprecedented amounts of money on television advertising. Records showed Obama and Clinton each spent $1.3 million (euro880,000) last Wednesday and have been increasing their purchases in the days since.

Obama spent about $250,000 (euro168,588.58) to run a 30-second ad during the Super Bowl football championship game on Sunday in selected, less expensive regions. 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 including Fargo, North Dakota, Knoxville, Tennessee, and Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The Northeast was the Democrats’ battleground on Monday, stretching from New Jersey and New York north to Connecticut and Massachusetts. Apart from Clinton’s home state of New York, the polls told a similar story in each – and in Missouri and California – with the former first lady trying to hold off the Illinois senator’s late rush.

Obama’s campaign was eager to claim the underdog’s role.

“Senator Clinton is certainly the favorite on Feb. 5, given the huge leads she has held in many of these contests throughout the course of the campaign and the political, historical and geographic advantages she enjoys in many of these states,” Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe, wrote in a memo to reporters.

In a conference call with reporters, Clinton strategists Howard Wolfson and Mark Penn predicted she would emerge from Super Tuesday with more delegates than Obama. But they agreed the race is far from over. “Many of us will be making our reservations for Texas and Ohio and perhaps Pennsylvania and beyond that,” Wolfson said, speaking of contests taking place in March and April.

Clinton’s first stop Monday was in New Haven, where she graduated from Yale Law School more than three decades ago. Clinton’s voice was raspy, and at one stop, she struggled to control her coughing, reflecting the wear of months on the campaign trail.

Obama campaigned in New Jersey within sight of the Meadowlands, home of the New York Giants, who defeated the previously unbeaten New England Patriots on Sunday night to win the Super Bowl.

“Sometimes the underdog pulls it out,” he said, talking about himself as much as a football team. “You can’t always believe the pundits and prognosticators.” Obama campaigned with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy at his side, trying to close once-large gaps in the polls in the Northeast, including the senator’s home state of Massachusetts.

Former President Bill Clinton spoke before a large number of Hispanic students at Santa Ana College in California, where he said he was part of the reason they should vote for his wife. “You know we have always been there for you, in good times and bad, we’ve been there for California,” he said.

In the Republican race, there are 1,023 delegates at stake in primaries in 15 states, caucuses in five and the West Virginia state convention. A candidate needs 1,191 delegates to secure the nomination So far, McCain has 102 delegates, including endorsements from party leaders who automatically attend the convention. Romney has 93 delegates.

Several states award all their delegates to the winner, and McCain was favored in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware and his home state of Arizona, with 251 delegates combined.

Romney, who would be the first Mormon president, hoped to counter with victories in Utah, where the Mormon church is based, and West Virginia, as well as in a string of caucuses in Western and Midwestern states.

But his task in several Southern and border states – Alabama, Georgia, Oklahoma and Missouri – is complicated by the presence on the ballot of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a preacher-turned-politician who is popular with religious conservatives.

Former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, campaigning alongside Romney, told reporters that if voters “want a conservative as the nominee of this party, you must vote for Mitt Romney. Because Mitt Romney is the only person in this race that can stop John McCain and the elite in the party who don’t as much care about those issues that a lot of folks in Georgia care about.” Largely overlooked in the chaos of the campaign was the opening of voting for Democrats living overseas in more than 30 countries.

The first ballots to pick delegates were cast at midnight in Indonesia, where Obama lived as a child.