The Note: Super Countdown

Feb. 4, 2008 -- Take what lessons you will from Sunday's astonishing and invigorating Super Bowl -- of New York and New England, of family legacies, of smugness and hunger, of Tom Petty seeing it all at halftime ("Free Fallin' "), of underdogs and favorites on the biggest of stages.

(And know that it could mean absolutely nothing or absolutely everything that Sunday night saw Hillary Clinton jumping for joy in a Minnesota bar, and Mitt Romney shuffling off to bed early -- with just a touch of sore loser in him.)

The battle for the Republican and Democratic nominations is not a classic favorite vs. underdog, insider vs. outsider duel. Befitting battles for hearts and souls of parties (whatever that means) the races pit party establishments against themselves -- or, at least, different portions of the establishments against each other.

And now that the only super thing left to grab the nation's attention is a sort of big national primary on Tuesday (and now that they'll be marching on Broadway instead of Boylston Street that same day) what happens in the closing hours takes on outsized importance, like key plays in the last few minutes of a playoff game.

It's why it may matter that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is dueling with Sen. Barack Obama on guns and healthcare at this very late stage -- and that she got (almost) pinned down on how she might pay for a universal healthcare mandate. "We will have an enforcement mechanism, whether it's that or it's some other mechanism through the tax system or automatic enrollments," she told ABC's George Stephanopoulos Sunday on "This Week."

It's why we take particular notice that another Kennedy -- and a Californian at that -- is backing Obama. Maria Shriver, California's first lady, managed to overshadow her cousin Caroline -- and Oprah Winfrey -- at an event at UCLA: "If Barack Obama was a state, he'd be California," Shriver said Sunday, per the Sacramento Bee's Peter Hecht.

It's why former President Bill Clinton's every word was parsed when he toured black churches in Southern California on Sunday -- and why ears perked up when he started talking about the "cruel irony that we have an embarrassment of riches in this election." (And this might just have been as close to an apology as we're going to hear: "We should be a country of second chances," the former president said, per the New York Sun's Josh Gerstein.)

It's why it could matter quite a bit that Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is maybe letting the teensiest bit of (over-?) confidence creep into his demeanor. McCain on Sunday came into Romney territory -- Boston -- "and spoke openly of his plans for the general election," Michael Finnegan, Maeve Reston, and Seema Mehta write in the Los Angeles Times. McCain "said he expected to unite the party's factions once he won the nomination. He plans to travel late this week to Germany for a security conference and might go to Iraq."

(Ask Tom Brady what happens when you start looking past your next opponent. It's why former governor Mitt Romney's last-minute trip to California -- where things could be tighter than they seem -- may mark his best chance to get back in the game . . . . )

It's why Romney really needs the talk-radio-talking-head-Republican set to do some dirty work on McCain.

"The hope is that these high-profile figures will sound the alarm and rouse conservatives who, either out of uncertainty over whom to support or a lack of enthusiasm for any one candidate, are about to wake up and find the despised McCain as their standard-bearer," Politico's Jonathan Martin reports.

It's why former governor Mike Huckabee, R-Ark., just might still be a factor in a two-man race where he isn't one of the two men.

"Desperate to stay relevant in this contest, the former Arkansas governor is . . . dialing up his attacks on Romney and largely ignoring McCain, even though the latter has emerged as the clear GOP front-runner heading into Super Tuesday," Perry Bacon Jr. writes in The Washington Post.

Said Huckabee: "Romney's arrogance is offensive to my supporters and serves only to fire them and me up."

As for sports omens and metaphors for the two candidates who had home teams in on the action . . . Clinton, D-N.Y., jumped into the air at a bar in Minneapolis. "We've got one down, now we've got to have the other," she said, per ABC's Eloise Harper.

Romney, R-Mass., wouldn't stick around to watch the Giants celebrate. Always a savvy student of sports, he labeled it "one of the worst moments in sports history" when his hometown team lost, and announced that he had no interest in seeing Eli and company hoist any trophies, per Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post.

So one set of the week's big contests is down. Yet 24 hours before Super Tuesday, everything we thing we know about the race could still change. McCain could sweep the nation and emerge as the de facto nominee -- unless conservatives buck the polls and consolidate behind Romney (whose hastily-added trip to Long Beach, Calif., for late Monday adds an intriguing wrinkle).

Clinton could edge out Obama in the big states and hold her own in enough small ones to emerge with a substantial delegate lead -- unless Obama surges past her and ends up with a lead of his own.