FACE THE RACE: Election Excerpts

Yesterday’s Face The Race was chock full of goodness, like this bit from Youth Radio L.A.’s Consuelo Cisneros. Consuelo reported live via phone into our Oakland studio from the L.A. basin. Catch her in conversation with FTR hosts King Anyi and Denise. (Real Media Format)

In the Booth on Super Tuesday

Tomorrow on NPR’s Day to Day 

Commentator Donald Moore from Youth Communication in New York City describes his experience stepping in the booth to vote on Super Tuesday… checking out the scene at his polling place in Brooklyn…and talking to friends online afterwards.

“Now, it feels like many of my friends have a vested interest in the candidates. And it’s more than just a vote to them. I don’t want to say they see it as a life or death decision, but they are taking it really seriously. And I felt that on voting day.”

The Flow posted one of Donald’s essays last week, and we’re happy to have him up on the air so soon. Many thanks to Youth Communication for partnering with us on this election essay!

Find Day to Day on your local NPR affiliate, or get the podcast.

Less Than A Percentage Point

Just how close is the race for the Democratic nomination?

By now we all know that what really matters is the delegate count, but its interesting to note the popular vote numbers.

From CNN:

By midday Wednesday, 14,645,638 votes were reported cast for either Obama or Clinton on Tuesday. Clinton had won 7,295,400 of those votes (50.2 percent) while Obama captured 7,295,400 votes (49.8 percent).

There will be a lot of spin coming out of the campaigns up to and through this weekend’s slate of contests ( Louisiana, Nebraska, Washington and the Virgin Islands all hold primaries or caucuses this Saturday, with Maine close behind with a Sunday caucus). The Obama campaign has done very well in the caucuses, and it will be interesting to see if that trend continues this weekend.

As far as the delegate race goes… with California still not definite its hard to tell, but MSNBC has Obama in the lead with 838, and Clinton right behind with 834. Any way you slice it the race is going to heat up.

On the Republican side, a John McCain nomination is looking more and more inevitable… which is driving the conservative wing of the party a little crazy. MSNBC has McCain with 720 delegates, Romney far behind him with only 256 out of the 1,191 needed to earn the nomination.

So what happens next?

Romney will have some serious thinking to do this weekend if McCain pulls it out in the races settled then. No one is expecting the Democratic race to get settled before March, and the previously insane idea that it could go all the way to the  August convention in Denver looks more and more like a reality with every split contest.

And here they thought this sped up schedule was going to give us a nominee that much quicker.

We’ll have more analysis on today’s Face The Race at 1PM PST on the All Day Play.