As Superbowl drama subsides, Super Tuesday drama sets in

NEW YORK - This is not a good week for Americans with weak hearts. They have not yet recovered from the drama of the Superbowl and are already facing another drama: Super Tuesday, when more than 20 states hold primaries.

In recent days, polls have showed Hillary Clinton's once commanding lead shrinking as Barack Obama gains strength. The latest surveys still show her ahead in her home state of New York (Obama also leads in his home state, Illinois), but in neighboring New Jersey, the gap has narrowed to 48 percent for Clinton, 43 percent for Obama - small enough that Obama could easily come out ahead. In California, her position is even worse: The three most recent polls show Obama with a slight edge, though still within the margin of statistical error.

Nevertheless, New Hampshire proved that Clinton is not a candidate who melts in the face of bad poll numbers, and that she is capable of pulling surprise victories out of her hat. It also proved that Obama's momentum in the surveys can be reversed by the voters who actually show up at the polling booths.

Nevertheless, for now, Obama is picking up steam. He has also closed the gap with Clinton in Delaware, Arizona, Minnesota, Alabama, Connecticut and Missouri.

Missouri is generally considered a bellwether state; only once, in 1956, did it end up voting for the losing candidate in the general elections (it went for Adlai Stevenson rather than Dwight Eisenhower). Thus Clinton and Obama both want to show that they can win in Missouri. The latest poll found an insignificant one percent gap between them.

Meanwhile, more and more people are jumping on the Obama bandwagon. Another member of the Kennedy family endorsed him yesterday: Maria Shriver - whose husband, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, is a Republican, and has endorsed John McCain.

In the Republican field, Mitt Romney is fighting for his life against McCain, who is ahead in the polls. Yesterday, Romney urged the third-place candidate, Mike Huckabee, to pull out, as the two of them are competing for the same conservative voters, thereby making it easier for McCain to win a plurality. However, Huckabee refused - fueling further speculation that McCain might ask Huckabee to be his vice presidential candidate.

Joe Lieberman, the former Democratic senator and vice presidential candidate who is today an independent and has endorsed McCain, continues to deny rumors that he is seeking to be McCain's running mate. If asked, he said, he would respond: "Thanks, John, I've been there, I've done that. You can find much better."

Some say that Lieberman really wants to be either secretary of state or secretary of defense. The logic of such an appointment is obvious: What unites Lieberman and McCain is their support for the war in Iraq. Meanwhile, however, Iraq is becoming less of an issue in the campaign: Last week, only 6 percent of the public listed it as their major concern, the lowest level since the war began.

The Israel Factor - the panel of experts that has been following the presidential race for Haaretz - noted that Lieberman's endorsement gives Israel supporters greater confidence that McCain would prove a friendly president. Of course, there are no guarantees. But the panel does not believe a McCain administration would put a member of the "realist" school - such as James Baker or Brent Scowcroft, who served under the first President George Bush - in charge of the Israel portfolio.

Meanwhile, however, there is a campaign to be fought, and the public is finding the Clinton-Obama race much more interesting than the McCain-Romney one. In several of the Democratic primaries, turnout has been almost double what it was in 2004. For instance, some 532,000 people voted in South Carolina's Democratic primary, up from 280,000 in 2004. That is a good sign for the Democrats in the general elections.

Moreover, this race is likely to go on for a while, because while most Republic primaries are winner-take-all, allowing a candidate to accumulate delegates fairly rapidly, most Democratic primaries are not. Thus the losing candidate in each state can still acquire a significant number of delegates - sometimes even more than the winner does.

Yesterday, Obama campaigned in the lion's den: East Rutherford, New Jersey. Not only is this Clinton's back yard, but it is home to the New York Giants, winners of this year's Superbowl - whereas Obama is a fan of the defeated New England Patriots. His appearance here attests to the change that has taken place in the race. Obama is no longer hoping that victories in the South and Midwest will compensate for losing the East and West Coasts to Clinton; he believes that he can win even in Clinton's strongholds.

Whether he does or not, the race is unlikely to end this week. Obama and Clinton might well still be battling it out in April.