Msnbc.com's political reporter Tom Curry answers questions about the road to the presidency
Feb. 8: Keith Olbermann says he has the greatest respect for David Shuster's work, but agrees that his comment about Chelsea Clinton was inappropriate. “We are, literally, dreadfully sorry,” he says.
See the candidates, voters and supporters as dozens of states voted in Republican and Democratic primaries.
WASHINGTON - 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.
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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.
Super Tuesday's split
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.
Fundraising surge, TV ad wars
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.
A look at the races:
Washington caucuses
The stakes: 78 Democratic delegates, 18 GOP delegates.
The campaign: Obama rallied in Seattle while his wife, Michelle, campaigned across the Cascade Mountains in Spokane. Clinton held a boisterous rally on the Seattle waterfront and filled gyms in Tacoma and Spokane.
McCain campaigned in Seattle and Huckabee's wife, Janet, was expected in the city's eastern suburbs.
Lay of the land: Obama is thought to have an advantage in the caucuses, which are dominated by party activists. However, Washington has a strong history of electing women.
Polls done shortly before John Edwards dropped out indicated a tight race between Clinton and Obama, with Edwards a strong third. Since then, some of Edwards' strongest supporters have endorsed Obama.
Social conservatives have a history of packing the GOP caucuses, which could boost Huckabee. But with McCain now a shoo-in, some who would normally vote in the Republican race might be drawn to the higher-stakes Democratic contest. Washington voters don't register by party.
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Barack Obama, the junior senator from Illinois and 2008 US presidential candidate has swept all three of today's Democratic contests, two caucuses in Nebraska and Washington and the primary in Louisiana. Obama also won the tiny United States territory of the United States Virgin Islands.

Obama won nearly 30% more over opponent Hillary Clinton in the Nebraska caucuses. Obama also had a major lead over Clinton in the Washington caucuses by a 2-1 margin. Commentators have noted that Obama seems to perform well in caucus states. 

Louisiana's Democratic primary was also won by Obama in a large margin, winning nearly 53% of the vote over Clinton's 39%. The state, which is still suffering from the effects of Hurricane Katrina three years later could play a large role in the election this year.

Despite these wins it is still a close and race between the two Democratic candidates, with Obama showing a lead in pledged delegates, and Hillary Clinton showing a narrow lead when super delegates are taken into account.  Each candidate needs to win the support of 2,025 delegates to secure the nomination.

After the voting and caucusing ended yesterday both candidates gave a speech at the Democratic Party's Jefferson and Jackson Dinner in Virginia- Clinton giving her standard stump speech and refusing to talk about what had happened during the day; Obama repeating many of the things he had said earlier in his "Yes We Can" speech, this time with detailed policy proposals as well as "hope-mongering".

The two candidates were in Maine today doing last minute campaigning before tomorrow's Democratic caucuses there and are also preparing for the "Potomac primary"  which will involve the nation's capital of Washington, D.C. and the bordering states of Maryland and Virginia to be held on February 12.