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Md., Va., D.C. Seek Strength in Numbers After Super Tuesday
Caryn Sonberg, left, 30, Chrisi West, 28, and Lynn Munch, 52, assemble yard signs for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) at an Alexandria library.
(By Nikki Kahn -- The Washington Post)
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Or not. For the moment, the influence that the Feb. 12 contests might exert is anyone's guess.
"After New Hampshire, nobody in their right mind should predict anything," said Democratic strategist Donna Brazile, referring to the dramatic Jan. 8 primary victory of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), which took pollsters and pundits by surprise.
One reason for the uncertainty is Super Tuesday, when Democrats in 22 states and one territory will award 52 percent of all pledged delegates, chosen with the understanding that they will vote for the candidate they are assigned to. The GOP will hold 21 primaries with 975 delegates at stake, or 41 percent of the total available.
Some party leaders suspect that with so many primaries, Super Tuesday is bound to produce a decisive result, once again rendering the region a political afterthought.
"My blunt assessment is that Maryland is probably not going to play an important role," said former governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R), mid-Atlantic chairman for the campaign of former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani (R).
Other party officials, however, said the results of the Democratic contest Saturday in South Carolina bolster the notion that the mid-Atlantic states could be relevant.
Maryland Democratic Party Chairman Michael E. Cryor predicted yesterday that Democratic turnout in his state would top 1 million Feb. 12, shattering the previous primary record of 592,000 in 1976.
Activity in the region has been mostly small-scale and below the radar. Campaigns in both parties have been diverting almost every available nickel and warm body to such battlegrounds as South Carolina and Florida and to Super Tuesday states.
"Candidly, in this region, we are not seeing a whole lot," said Fairfax County Republican Committee Chairman James Hyland.
For the most part, until the morning of Feb. 6, the level of action will probably remain at grass-roots organizing and fundraising.
"Everything is run out of people's homes," said Michael Novelli, an Obama coordinator in Maryland. "I wish we had more resources, but it's a massive effort with all the other states coming before us, so we've been sort of left to our own devices."
The goal is to build a corps of volunteers that can ramp up quickly for a six-day sprint. On Wednesday evening, about a dozen Obama volunteers gathered in a meeting room at the James M. Duncan Branch of the Alexandria public library to make calls from their cellphones.
