Super Tuesday:  Now Open in Three States; Democrats Fight for Delegates; Ugly Betty Backs Clinton
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: And it's their final appeal --</s>SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We cannot wait to bring change to America.</s>SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I am confident I can unite and will unite and am uniting this party.</s>CHETRY: The issues -- the voters. We're live with three possible presidents and live from seven states. It's Super Tuesday on the "Most Politics in the Morning." Homecoming kings, the Big Apple welcoming back Big Blue. Ticker tape and a stroll down the canyon of heroes on this AMERICAN MORNING. And welcome. It is Super Tuesday, February 5th from the Adam Clayton Powell School in Harlem. I'm Kiran Chetry. It's one of the polling sites, one of the many around New York State this morning. Hey, John.</s>JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning to you, Kiran. From the Atlanta Diner in the northeastern part of Atlanta, I'm John Roberts, where it's a big day all across America. As close as we're going to come to a national primary, 24 states up for grabs today, 21 on the Republican side, 22 on the Democratic side. And we are live across the board -- 1,681 delegates available for the Democrats to pick up, 1,020 delegates for the Republicans. Right now, polls are open in nine states: Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Missouri and Tennessee. Connecticut, New Jersey and New York opened an hour ago at 6:00 a.m. Eastern. The candidates are crisscrossing the country. We're talking with three of them this morning. Barack Obama wakes up in Boston before heading home to Chicago tonight. Hillary Clinton votes this hour in her hometown of Chappaqua. She attends a rally later tonight in Manhattan. We spoke with her on our last hour. And Senator John McCain begins his day with a rally in New York City. He will then jet to San Diego before heading to Phoenix. Mitt Romney will attend a convention of West Virginia GOP delegates. It's going on this morning in Charleston and will then head to Boston -- Kiran.</s>CHETRY: Well, we have our team on the issues, talking to voters from coast to coast this morning. Sanjay Gupta and Gerri Willis are in Atlanta with John this morning. Chris Lawrence is in San Francisco actually. Ed Lavandera in Chattanooga, Tennessee, with Mary Snow in Charleston, West Virginia. Our Jason Carroll is in New Jersey, and Suzanne Malveaux is in Boston for us. And speaking of Boston, we start in Massachusetts. The polls just open at the top of the hour. Forty delegates are at stake for the Republicans, 93 delegates at stake for the Democrats. Obama, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have made your money a big issue in their campaigns. And, in fact earlier on AMERICAN MORNING, I had a chance to speak to Senator Clinton about her plans to solve the mortgage meltdown.</s>SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I would have a very aggressive policy toward trying to stop home foreclosures. Again, I'm the only candidate left in this race on either side who's been talking about the mortgage crisis for nearly a year. We need to put a moratorium on foreclosures to help people stay in their homes, and we need to freeze these interest rates that continue to escalate, driving more and more people into foreclosure.</s>CHETRY: CNN's Suzanne Malveaux is in Boston, and that's where Senator Barack Obama is this morning as well. We're going to be speaking with him actually in the next half hour. Suzanne, what is his focus on this Super Tuesday?</s>SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's funny because you see both of these candidates crisscrossing the country, spending millions of dollars on advertising, and also using rap videos, town hall meetings, everything to try to get the voters to get a better sense of knowing the candidates. What we're hearing from both of these candidates is a talk about the economy, making lives better for voters. But also more recently, we're hearing from Barack Obama. He's starting to talk about his stand against the Iraq war. He believes this is one of his strengths when it comes to the voters and he's painting this picture now of what it would look like to run against John McCain. He believes that this is something that the voters will resonate with and that it's a real distinction between the two, and it also proves that he is possibly electable.</s>SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I honor John McCain's half a century of service to this country. And I think that it's something that we have to all honor because, you know, he's been a war hero and I think he's done good work in the Senate. But the fact of the matter is that John McCain is not the person who is going to lead this country in a new direction.</s>MALVEAUX: Now, Kiran, neither one of these camps believe that this race is going to be over after today. They believe that they're not going to get the majority necessary to win the nomination. So this is a battle that is going to continue at least into the next month or so. But already, you have that expectations game that is being played out. The Obama camp trying to play down, lower those expectations, saying they fully expect that Senator Clinton is going to get more states. She's going to get more delegates. But they say that Barack Obama if he comes within 100 delegates of Clinton and he wins some states, that that's going to reach their threshold for success and better position them to get the nomination later on down the road. It's all about those headlines on Wednesday, exceeding expectations and making the voters in those future contests believe that that is the candidate who is most electable. And also, perhaps even urging some of those folks who have yet to endorse the candidates that they're the one that they should go for -- Kiran.</s>CHETRY: Yes. The morning-after bragging rights still important even though it's not winner-take-all at least for the Democrats. Suzanne Malveaux, thank you -- John.</s>MALVEAUX: Thanks, Kiran.</s>ROBERTS: Five minutes after the hour. West Virginia now and the Republican race -- no primary or caucus there. The state's Republican Party has decided to split up their delegates and host a convention. It gets under way in about two hours from now at 9:00 Eastern. Eighteen delegates at stake there. Mitt Romney will be there. So will Mike Huckabee. Romney is promising a Super Tuesday surprise saying don't count on a McCain sweep. He told voters in Oklahoma that he is the man who can protect their money.</s>MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Executive leadership works. You've got to get out of the Senate and the House where you -- where you're there with what? Hundreds of other people, voting yes or no, serving on committees. But the real economy is where I've been, is where these folks have been, and we need to have somebody from the real economy, in my view, go to Washington and make sure we keep that real economy strong.</s>ROBERTS: Senator John McCain heads to California later on today after picking up an endorsement from former New York Governor George Pataki. McCain told the crowd that a vote for him means keeping more personal freedom.</s>SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We'll have a vigorous debate, and it will be all about a conservative Republican philosophy or a big government liberal Democrat philosophy. And I'm confident the American people will choose to let American families make the choices for themselves and America rather than the government do that.</s>ROBERTS: And the candidates are talking with us today. We spoke with Hillary Clinton in our last hour of AMERICAN MORNING. Mitt Romney joins us live at the bottom of this hour from Charleston, West Virginia. And at 7:50 this morning, we'll talk live with Barack Obama. Polls are open right now in the Tristate area. In New Jersey, 52 delegates at stake for the Republicans, 127 for Democrats. And all of the candidates are hoping to attract independent voters who can vote in New Jersey today. Our Jason Carroll is at a polling station in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Jason, the poll is open for more than an hour now? How's it going there so far?</s>JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Going pretty well here in Fort Lee, New Jersey. This is a fire station that has now become a polling place. You can see the volunteers are all here ready to go. When voters show up, they're going to head to one of these electronic voting booths right here where the choice will be easy. They'll make a choice for either one of the Republican or Democratic candidates. As you know, John, actually New Jersey moved its primary up so they could have more influence on choosing a presidential nominee. And the state may have gotten its race because the Democratic race is too close to call. Senator Barack Obama held a rally here yesterday in East Rutherford where he was joined by Senator Edward Kennedy. It's the second time that he's held a major rally in northern New Jersey within the past month. Senator Clinton supporters say that she's enjoying a slight lead here in the state. They dispatched Chelsea Clinton out to the state to do some last-minute campaigning. On the Republican side, Senator John McCain has held a double- digit lead over Mitt Romney, according to many of the polls. Even so, Senator McCain stopped through a Trenton suburb yesterday. He did some last-minute campaigning there. Mitt Romney dispatching his son to the state to do a little bit of campaigning. Voter turnout here in the state of New Jersey expected to be somewhat higher than it has been in years past, simply because they moved up the primary date -- John.</s>ROBERTS: You know, so many of these states wanted to move up the primaries to this point in the process because they wanted to play a decisive role in finding out who the nominee was going to be. But, Jason, things are so close. It's sounding like none of these states will be decisive.</s>CARROLL: Yes. You know, John, you may actually be right. I mean, things definitely close here in the Democratic side here in New Jersey. But when you talk to folks here in the state, they, for the first time in many, many years since the mid '80s, feel as though they at least have -- they are able to participate in the process of choosing the presidential nominee, which they didn't feel as much in years' past -- John.</s>ROBERTS: All right. Well, we'll see how it goes today. Jason Carroll for us this morning in Fort Lee, New Jersey, where on the Republican side, we should mention, it is a winner-take-all state. It's the Super Tuesday marathon live from the CNN Election Center. The best political team on television covers every race all day and all night long. Forty nonstop hours of Super Tuesday coverage on your home for politics, CNN. And we'll be up bright and early tomorrow morning for a special edition of AMERICAN MORNING on Wednesday, starting things off at 5:00 a.m. Eastern, continuing live Election Center coverage of the Super Tuesday results. That's tomorrow morning starting an hour early at 5:00 a.m. So, Kiran, the suggestion this morning is sleep early.</s>CHETRY: Sleep early or just don't go to bed. You know, it's going to be so exciting tonight.</s>ROBERTS: Oh, either one.</s>CHETRY: I can't imagine shutting the TV off. Well, it's Super Tuesday suspense. In fact, California, as we've been talking about, has the most delegates up for grabs today. But we may not know the result in that state for days to come. We're going to find out why just ahead. Also, if you're flying today, you may have to pack light or pay up especially if you're on one certain airline. We'll explain. And there are new tests -- they say they can predict if breast cancer will spread. It's helping women decide what kind of treatment they should choose. Our Dr. Sanjay Gupta explains on this special edition of AMERICAN MORNING live from Atlanta, Georgia, in the Adam Clayton Powell School in Harlem.