A Republican Super Tuesday

Last Tuesday's primaries in the US presidential race - where 24 states voted on so-called Super Tuesday - produced a clear front-runner for the Republicans, Senator John McCain, who easily won the largest share of delegates and who triumphed in the large states of California and New York.

On Thursday Mitt Romney pulled out of the Republican race, turning the contest into a two-man battle between Senator McCain and Mike Huckabee, the former Governor of Arkansas who has little appeal outside the southern Bible belt states. Mr McCain's nomination now seems inevitable.

In contrast, no clear winner emerged after Super Tuesday on the Democratic side, with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both doing well and both claiming victory. This is not particularly good news for the Democratic Party, which unlike the Republican Party, still has two leading candidates attacking each other. True, the moderate Mr McCain has to campaign hard to win the hearts and minds of Republican conservatives, but he can now afford to focus his attention on criticising the Democrats.

Whether the Democrats produce a front-runner in the weeks ahead is still to be seen, as both candidates have the support of roughly the same number of delegates with Hillary Clinton slightly ahead. Obama won more states than Clinton on Super Tuesday but Mrs Clinton won in larger states, such as New York, California and Massachusetts, and therefore got more delegates than her rival on the day.

Had Obama won in these large states - in addition to victory in the southern and western states - he would probably have been unstoppable. However, despite several high profile Democratic endorsements for Obama, Mrs Clinton seemed to have dented her opponent's momentum, especially with the support of white working class women, Asians and Latinos, and the Democratic race remains wide open.

It is possible that the Democratic Party contest can go all the way to the party national convention in Denver, Colorado, on August 25 - something which I believe has not happened in the post-war period - if no candidate wins the nomination before.

In such a scenario the battle will be for the support of the so-called super-delegates, such as senior party officials, who will have to pledge their support for either candidate. If it does come to this, such an outcome will favour the Republicans, whose official candidate would have been well established in the presidential race.

The Democrats officially say that such an intense race between Senators Obama and Clinton is healthy and good for the party, pointing out to the fact that turnout among registered Democratic voters was much higher than the Republican turnout in all the contests on Super Tuesday. This is a valid point and if this trend continues until election day in November it should favour the Democrats.

However, with the Republican nomination almost certainly going to Mr McCain, the Democrats will have to keep in mind the fact that the Republican Senator greatly appeals to centrists and independents, and so their candidate must also likewise appeal to this very important part of the electorate.

Mr McCain now has to start consolidating his position within the Republican Party. He is not particularly popular with the party establishment or the conservative wing of the party, which consider him too liberal on a number of issues, such as campaign finance, illegal immigration and climate change. Furthermore, he failed to win any of the Bible belt states on Tuesday, although he did win the South Carolina primary on January 19.

If Mr McCain does manage to get the support of grassroots conservatives, he stands a reasonable chance of winning the presidency in November. Without the conservative vote, he stands no chance. He will now have to broaden his appeal and seriously consider appointing a conservative as his vice-presidential running mate once the nomination is his.

As the Super Tuesday results poured in Mr McCain remarked: "I am confident tonight as I have ever been that we can succeed in November by uniting our party and by again making a persuasive case to independents and to those enlightened members of the other party that the great Ronald Reagan claimed for our party."

He has already made clear what he thinks will divide him from the Democratic candidate: "Democrats want to raise your taxes while we are going to reduce taxes. Democrats are going to raise the white flag and withdraw from Iraq. We are going to have this surge continue and succeed," he said. Mr McCain seems to be learning fast and is already sounding like a conservative.

There are still a lot of primaries left to be contested from now until May and for the Democrats many battles lie ahead. The choice is between the experienced Mrs Clinton and the visionary Mr Obama - the successful candidate will be the one who voters believe stands the best chance of defeating Mr McCain. Senator McCain, on the other hand, will have to reach out to conservatives while at the same time continue, at least for now, to face a challenge - however small - from the conservative Mike Huckabee.