 "Photo: Courtesy of The Los Angeles Times/Washington Post News Wire")
In the biggest "Super Tuesday" ever, Sen. John McCain, (R-Ariz.), emerged as the front-runner for the Republican nomination while Sen. Barack Obama, (D-Ill.) and Sen. Hillary Clinton, (D-N.Y.) continue to fight in the too-close-to-call Democratic race.
"Super Tuesday" is the name given to the first Tuesday in February during a presidential election year in which the largest number of states hold its primary or caucus elections. On Feb. 5, 24 states held their primary or caucus.
Candidates in both parties hope to win the most states, and the valuable delegates within each state. These delegates help to select a presidential nominee during the party conventions, which will occur later in the year.
Joseph Pika, professor of political science and international relations, said this year's "Super Tuesday" was like the "Mardi Gras of politics in the United States."
Pika said on the Republican side of the election, McCain cemented himself as the top candidate. A Republican candidate needs 1,191 delegates to win the nomination and McCain leads the pack with 724.
McCain was helped by former Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney's decision to drop out he said. With a commanding lead over former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, McCain will most likely land the party's nomination.
"Romney's decision opens up the road for McCain's nomination. It also strengthens Huckabee's claim to be the more conservative candidate and his prospect as vice president," Pika said. "I think the party will rally around him and he will officially have enough delegates to claim the nomination."
Though McCain won many states by a small margin, laws within those states gave him all of the delegates, as some states use a winner-take-all system on the Republican side, he said.
The Democrats have two candidates still vying for the nomination. he said. A Democratic candidate needs 2,205 delegates for the nomination and so far, Obama leads Clinton 943 to 895 delegates, respectively.
Obama seems to be the more exciting and electrifying candidate right now, Pika said, but it is an up and down race. Obama has won some important states but Clinton won the big states, including California, New Jersey and New York on Super Tuesday.
"He's going to do well for a couple weeks and then Hillary will be doing better for a couple weeks," he said. "I think it'll be back and forth for a while."
Jason Mycoff, professor of political science department, said many states wanted to make their primary count more so the state primary was moved up. The parties do not want many states holding primaries earlier and earlier, a concept referred to as frontloading. Mycoff said this is why so many states held their election on "Super Tuesday," as the party would not allow them to hold it earlier.
Two states, Florida and Michigan, held the primaries before "Super Tuesday," violating party rules, he said. As a result, the Democrats stripped both states of all of their delegates and the Republicans stripped half of the delegates of seats at the national convention in August. However, this punishment did not stop either state.
"That's really the only incentive structure they have," Mycoff said. "Clearly, the punishment didn't affect Michigan's and Florida's decision. They still decided to jump up."
Mycoff said some candidates like a compressed schedule more than others. Established candidates, like Clinton, like stacking the primaries early because they can campaign throughout the country while lesser known candidates do not have those types of resources.
"Hillary Clinton has the national name recognition, she has the money to do the travel, to do the advertising in 22 states at a time," he said. "Those sorts of candidates are benefitted by compressed schedule."
Lindsay Hoffman, communications professor, said one interesting part of the campaign is how interested people are so early on in the election and how many people have voted in the primary.
In this election, people are seeing candidates they can identify with, Hoffman said. Gender, race, religion, age and issues are different ways people identify themselves with the candidates.
"People are getting engaged and really responding," she said.
Hoffman said Clinton faces a tough challenge in this election because the role of Commander in Chief is primarily seen as a masculine role. Many times, people focus on personal characteristics, such as gender and race, and in this election cycle, Clinton being a female candidate makes people focus on how fit she is for that role.
"There are many traits you associate with that role," she said. "You think of a general or something like this. Women stereotypically have not been in that kind of role for very long."
Communications Professor Danna Young said emotion is playing a large role in this year's election. National feelings of uncertainty and anxiousness are causing people to pay attention to politics and are helping to bring them to the polls.
Young said this election is also very focused on the issues at hand. She said though journalists love to focus on race and gender, the candidates have done a good job of sticking to the issues in this so far "clean" campaign.
"In spite of that, especially during the debates, there has been a lot of concentration on issues," Young said. "It has been fairly issue-focused."
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