WASHINGTON -- John McCain's coronation was on hold last night. The Arizona senator claimed the title of Republican front-runner, though his rivals vowed that the race would go on.
For Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, there was no such hint of clarity. The inescapable reality of the delegate math meant it would be weeks, if not months, before a Democratic nominee is crowned.
"This is like trench warfare," said Bill Carrick, a Democratic strategist. "We're just headed for a long haul here."
One of the next battlefields: Maryland, a state that poses a significant challenge for Clinton.
The New York senator has the edge in establishment support in Maryland, but the state sets up extremely well for Obama. It has a large population of affluent suburbanites, liberals and college students -- the core of his white support in other states.
More important, Maryland has the highest proportion of black voters of any state outside the Deep South, a group that Obama carried by margins of 4-to-1 over Clinton yesterday.
An added bonus for Obama: a hot primary challenge to Rep. Albert R. Wynn in the Washington suburbs, which is likely to boost black turnout, said Karin Johanson, a Democratic strategist who once served as chief of staff to Rep. Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland.
Johanson said, however, that it would be premature to write Clinton off in Maryland, especially until the full impact of Super Tuesday is measured, though Clinton's campaign is already playing down her chances.
"You have, in Maryland, a state that has elected a woman senator, that had at one time half of its delegation to the House that were women," said Johanson, who advises Emily's List, a feminist group that has been working to turn out women for Clinton around the country.
Clinton has top-flight political support from Barbara A. Mikulski, the state's senior U.S. senator and a vigorous advocate for Clinton around the country, and from Gov. Martin O'Malley, who also has gone out of state to promote her candidacy.
More recently, former Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend has been thrust forward by Clinton's campaign to try to counter a publicity bonanza for Obama after he was endorsed by her uncle, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, her mother, Ethel Kennedy, and cousins Caroline Kennedy and Maria Shriver.
Obama will be favored in Prince George's and Montgomery counties and the city of Baltimore, said Johanson, while Clinton should do well in upper Montgomery, Frederick, the Eastern Shore and Western Maryland. That would make Baltimore and Howard counties key battlegrounds.
On the Republican side, Mitt Romney plans to campaign in the Baltimore area tomorrow, and McCain is expected in Maryland before Tuesday. A Sun poll showed McCain leading in the state last month before Rudolph W. Giuliani withdrew from the race.
With Giuliani's support, McCain swept contests from Connecticut to Delaware yesterday and will be favored to win most of Maryland's 37 Republican delegates.
Obama strategists see real opportunities for him beyond Maryland in states that also hold primaries and caucuses over the next two weeks. Large numbers of black voters in the District of Columbia and Virginia, which constitute a "Potomac Primary" with Maryland on Tuesday, and in Louisiana on Saturday, could give him an edge there, too.
Clinton hopes to limit any Obama gains over the next few weeks while looking ahead to March 4 primaries in Ohio, which has a largely white population, and Texas, with a substantial Hispanic base, as a firebreak for her campaign.
Clinton's strategists contend that many Democrats have been forced to make hasty choices in the rush of early contests over the past month, casting votes, in some cases, based on "limited information" about Obama.
Still, it's not clear that Clinton is wearing well with voters. In a new national poll for National Public Radio, voters were asked whether they find themselves more willing or less willing to support Clinton after months of watching and reading about the candidates. Three in five said they were less likely to support her, whereas more than half said they were more likely to support Obama.
Clinton's top strategist, Mark Penn, has signaled his candidate's apparent readiness to raise the temperature of the contest, arguing in a conference call earlier in the week that the race is entering a "different phase" after Super Tuesday.
Voters will now be able to get a "comparison" of the records of both candidates, he said, which some Democrats read as a signal that Clinton was prepared to go negative on her rival, a tactic that backfired in South Carolina last month.
Clinton campaign officials have said they are digging in for a nomination fight that could go all the way to the party's national convention in August. That prospect frightens some Democrats, who worry that a prolonged internal struggle would benefit McCain, the most likely Republican nominee.
But last night it was Obama who was signaling that he might be ready to turn up the heat in the Democratic contest.
After praising Clinton as "a friend" who is "running an outstanding race," he won cheers from supporters when he said, "This fall, we owe the American people a real choice.
"We have to choose between change and more of the same. We have to choose between looking backward and looking forward."
And he argued that he, rather than Clinton, was the Democrat who could unite Americans of all parties, backgrounds, races, regions and religions in the fall.
"We know that what began as a whisper has now swelled to a chorus that cannot be ignored," he said, leading his backers in chants of "Yes, we can."
paul.west@baltsun.com