Super Tuesday Postmortem: Massachusetts Edition

For the second time this week, Massachusetts residents prepared for a major event, only to be left confused and alone after it ended. The national news outlets are packing up their live trucks and are headed to the March 4 primary states, while we’re left with the memories of our brief time in the sun.

After the jump, we try to make sense of what the electorate was thinking.

The voters who waited in lines that went on for blocks to hear Barack Obama speak on Monday night must have come from inside Rt. 128. Despite the endorsements from every major player in the Kennedy clan and Gov. Deval Patrick, Hillary Clinton won the majority of Massachusetts’ democratic delegates with 56 percent of the vote to Obama’s 41 percent.

The few local politicians who supported Clinton took the opportunity to gloat at a rally last night.

“Those are the show horses; we are the work horses,” said [House Speaker Sal] DiMasi[.] “It was the people and the volunteers at the grass roots, not the political celebrities, who decided this election.”

Obama’s celebrities supporters remained audaciously hopeful.

“I congratulate Sen. Clinton and all her supporters,” said [Gov.] Patrick. “I am looking forward to continuing my support of Sen. Obama in the weeks ahead.”

Clinton owes a great deal of her success in Massachusetts to the state’s female voters, claiming 17 percent more women than Obama. Nationwide, Obama did well with black female voters, but they make up only 3 percent of Massachusetts’ female voting block.

Turning to the GOP, Mitt Romney delighted in casting a ballot for himself in Belmont.

“That’s pretty fun,” he said. “First time I’ve ever voted for myself for president.”

Mitt wasn’t the only Republican in Massachusetts to vote Romney. He scored a double-digit victory over John McCain with 51 percent of the vote to 41 percent for the Arizona senator. In a night that featured more embarrassment than jubilation for the Romney campaign, the double-digit victory on his home turf silenced those who thought McCain had a shot at winning the Bay State.

We imagine the real kerfuffle will start when the Ron Paul supporters inundate the Globe with hate mail once they notice the town-by-town breakdown in the print edition claims Paul won Boylston, while the online edition calls it a win for Romney.

So, after two weeks of hype and expectations, we got status quo. It would have been nice if that other big event had turned out like that.