Obama, Clinton compete in 3 states

Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton competed for Democratic convention delegates across three states on Saturday, locked in a landmark struggle for the party's presidential nomination.

A total of 158 delegates was at stake in the Louisiana primary and caucuses in Nebraska and Washington. Caucuses in the Virgin Islands offered three more.

Clinton began the day with a slender delegate lead in The Associated Press count. She had 1,045 delegates to 960 for Obama. A total of 2,025 is required to win the nomination at the party convention in Denver.

Republican contests in Louisiana, Kansas and Guam provided John McCain a chance to advance closer to the 1,191 delegates he needs to make his nomination official.

The Arizona senator began the day with 707 delegates. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, with 195, and Texas Rep. Ron Paul, with 14, were his only remaining rivals following Mitt Romney's withdrawal from the race.

The day's contests opened a new phase in the Democratic race between Clinton, attempting to become the first woman in the White House, and Obama, hoping to become the first black.

The Feb. 5 Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses in 22 states, which once looked likely to effectively settle the race, instead produced a near-equal delegate split.

That left Obama and Clinton facing the likelihood of a grind-it-out competition lasting into spring — if not to the convention itself.

With the night's events, 29 of the 50 states have selected delegates.

Two more — Michigan and Florida — held renegade primaries and the Democratic National Committee has vowed not to seat any delegates chosen at either of them.

Maine, with 24 delegates, holds caucuses on Sunday. Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia and voting by Americans overseas are next, on Tuesday, with 175 combined.

Then follows a brief intermission, followed by a string of election nights, some crowded, some not.

The date of March 4 looms large, 370 delegates in primaries in Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont.

Mississippi is alone in holding a primary one week later, with a relatively small 33 delegates at stake.

Puerto Rico anchors the Democratic calendar, with 55 delegates chosen in caucuses on June 7.

If Super Tuesday failed to settle the campaign, it produced a remarkable surge in fundraising.

Obama's aides announced he had raised more than $7 million on line in the two days that followed.

Clinton disclosed she had loaned her campaign $5 million late last month in an attempt to counter her rival's Super Tuesday television advertising. She raised more than $6 million in the two days after the busiest night in primary history.

The television ad wars continued unabated.

Obama has been airing commercials for more than a week in television markets serving every state that has a contest though Feb 19.

Clinton began airing ads midweek in Washington state, Maine and Nebraska, and added Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia on Friday.

White House Hopefuls Make Super Tuesday Pitches

Democratic and Republican White House hopefuls are making their final Super Tuesday pitches as voters in 24 states and American Samoa are heading to the polls.

Super Tuesday is virtually a national primary day, and some of the biggest prizes of the primary season -- California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Missouri and Georgia -- are up for grabs.

More than four-fifths of the 2,025 delegates needed to clinch the Democratic presidential nomination and more than 1,000 of the 1,191 necessary delegates on the Republican side are at stake.

Tuesday's results are more likely to decide the presumptive presidential nominee in the Republican contest than in the Democratic contest because of the way the GOP allocates delegates.

Victors in the Republican primaries and caucuses usually enjoy a winner-take-all delegate system, while Democrats parcel out delegates on a proportional basis

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton cast her ballot in her home state of New York Tuesday morning. She was joined by her husband, former President Clinton, and her daughter, Chelsea.

The stakes are huge for our country, a lot of big challenges, but America's up to it," Clinton said after casting her vote. "We just need a president who's ready on day one to turn the economy around and become commander in chief and get our country back on the right track."

Obama started his Super Tuesday on the opposite coast. During an interview with CNN from San Francisco, California, the Illinois Democrat promoted his health care plan, a key issue for California voters.

"Our focus has been on reducing costs, making it available. I am confident that if people have a chance to buy high-quality health care that is affordable, they will do so," Obama said.

GOP nominees Sen. John McCain of Arizona, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee will be scrambling for votes throughout the day.

Two front-runners, McCain and Romney, have engaged in some bitter exchanges over each others conservative records

McCain started his day at a rally in New York flanked by former New York City mayor and presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani and independent Sen. Joe Lieberman. McCain told supporters on a Manhattan street that he would "take the battle to the enemy."

"I guarantee you, as the nominee of my party, I can and will carry the city of New York as well as the state of New York, because we know how to appeal to independents," he said.

McCain was scheduled to fly to California, a key Super Tuesday state, for events in San Diego and was set to finish his day in Phoenix, Arizona.

McCain's closest rival for GOP nomination, Romney, told delegates at the West Virginia Republican convention Tuesday that wins in California and other Super Tuesday states would put him in position to win his party's nomination.

"It will indicate the conservative voices in our party are standing up and saying, 'wait a second, we want to make sure that this party does not leave the house that [former President] Ronald Reagan built," Romney said in Charleston, West Virginia.

"And if that happens, I think we're going to see a very clear pathway to gain additional delegates from the ongoing contests, and put together the winning combination to get the nomination."

While last-minute polls indicate Romney has gained ground against McCain in California, Romney is likely to split races with Huckabee in the South, Republican strategist John Feehery said.

In the Northeastern states and Midwest, I think John McCain is going to win," Feehery said. "I think it's really hard for Mitt Romney to get this nomination."

On the Democratic side, the surviving contenders -- Obama and Clinton -- are likely to split the delegates more evenly, Democratic analyst Peter Fenn said.

"I think that Obama clearly has an advantage in those seven states that are doing caucuses," Fenn said. "I think she's got to carry the big states that she had planned on. California is clearly up for grabs now ... Unless one or the other gets annihilated, I think they go on to many more Tuesdays."

In a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll out Monday, the two Democratic front-runners were virtually tied

Obama, who trounced Clinton in January's South Carolina primary, garnered 49 percent of registered Democrats in Monday's poll, while Clinton trailed by just 3 percentage points. View the latest poll results »

With a sampling error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points, that margin is too close to say which Democrat is leading

Study: False statements preceded war

WASHINGTON - A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The study concluded that the statements "were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses."

The study was posted Tuesday on the Web site of the Center for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for Independence in Journalism.

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel did not comment on the merits of the study Tuesday night but reiterated the administration's position that the world community viewed Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein, as a threat.

"The actions taken in 2003 were based on the collective judgment of intelligence agencies around the world," Stanzel said.

The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both.

"It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida," according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members, writing an overview of the study. "In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003."

Named in the study along with Bush were top officials of the administration during the period studied: Vice President Dick Cheney, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan.

Bush led with 259 false statements, 231 about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 28 about Iraq's links to al-Qaida, the study found. That was second only to Powell's 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq and al-Qaida.

The center said the study was based on a database created with public statements over the two years beginning on Sept. 11, 2001, and information from more than 25 government reports, books, articles, speeches and interviews.

"The cumulative effect of these false statements — amplified by thousands of news stories and broadcasts — was massive, with the media coverage creating an almost impenetrable din for several critical months in the run-up to war," the study concluded.

"Some journalists — indeed, even some entire news organizations — have since acknowledged that their coverage during those prewar months was far too deferential and uncritical. These mea culpas notwithstanding, much of the wall-to-wall media coverage provided additional, 'independent' validation of the Bush administration's false statements about Iraq," it said.