By this morning, according to the old primary rules, we should have known for certain who the parties’ general election candidates would be. But this is a presidential race played by new rules with few of the traditional certainties. If the race is not quite over, it is, at least, almost settled on the Republican side. Mitt Romney’s failure to halt the revival in fortunes that John McCain has enjoyed since the military surge began to have its effect in Iraq should ensure that it is now only a matter of time before the Arizona senator emerges as November’s Republican candidate.

Had Governor Huckabee dropped out after Florida, allowing Governor Romney to garner all his party’s most stalwart conservatives, the story would have been different. But Mr. Huckabee, penniless and largely pointless since his win in Iowa, would not abandon his dream of following President Clinton from the Governor’s Mansion in Little Rock, Ark., to the White House.

Mr. Huckabee’s bargain basement Southern strategy, which paid off last night in places like Georgia, West Virginia, Alabama, and his home state of Arkansas, stole enough votes from Mr. Romney to prevent him prospering in promising territory, allowing Mr. McCain to forge ahead. The Arizona senator, who has found it hard to conceal his personal contempt for Mr. Romney, is in Mr. Huckabee’s debt.

Mr. Romney had so much going in his favor when the race started. But neither his late conversion to blood red conservatism, nor the scale of his personal fortune, nor the backing of the talk radio conservatives, nor even his Hollywood good looks could save his floundering campaign. One day he was the establishment insider, the next he was the insurgent change agent. Last night the winner takes all principle that governs the Republican primaries shut Mr. Romney out of the contest.

Mr. McCain appears to have settled one of the key questions posed by the Republican debates: who among the hopefuls could claim the mantle of Ronald Reagan? Republicans seem to have concluded that, while Mr. Romney was every bit as handsome as Reagan, the maverick senator from Arizona was as likeable and as authentic as Reagan, someone who didn’t need a poll or a focus group or a finger in the wind to decide where he stood on an issue.

Never mind that many conservatives may rile at Mr. McCain’s views on campaign finance, on immigration, on evangelical Christians, on torture, the senator was, like Reagan, confident enough to be himself on the campaign trail, not a pandering confection.

Now Mr. McCain enjoys an advantage his Democratic rival does not enjoy — time to unify his splintered party around him then head toward the center, where all general elections are won and lost. Meanwhile, Senators Clinton and Obama seem destined to battle on towards the convention at Denver.

Nothing much was settled last night for the Democrats, except that the momentum Mr. Obama appeared to be enjoying hit the wall of the Clinton political machine. One of the major upsets was how even the Democrats of Massachusetts ignored the emotional appeal made by Senators Kennedy and Kerry and President Kennedy’s daughter Caroline to follow their hearts and back Senator Obama.

When the keepers of JFK’s flame tried to rekindle their aristocratic influence last week, at first it seemed a deathblow for Mrs. Clinton’s ambitions. On reflection, it seems little more than a one day wonder, an act of egotism and arrogance on behalf of the rogue elephant of the Democratic party, and evidence that after nearly half a century the Democratic love affair with all things Kennedy is coming to an end.

In New Jersey, too, Mrs. Clinton held onto her lead. Even as Mr. Obama garners swathes of delegates, thanks to the proportional system the Democratic rules demand, last night he appeared to have lost the limelight he enjoyed until yesterday morning. Once again it seems it was rash to underestimate the ability of the Clintons to make the expectations game work in their favor.

There was a perception going into Super Tuesday that Mr. Obama was on the verge of trouncing his rival. Now the race will drag on in a series of skirmishes allowing Mrs. Clinton breathing space to recover her dominance over her party’s thinking. The time she bought last night is likely to be put to good use.

The kerfuffle that surrounded President Clinton’s red-faced criticisms of Mr. Obama, over the Iraq war, over race, over American history, brought to an abrupt halt the due diligence about the Illinois senator’s background and beliefs that voters deserve. If the press, or the Clintons, do not close this reporting deficit and Mr. Obama becomes the Democratic candidate, you can be sure that Mr. McCain’s allies will take their duties more seriously.

The Democrats are now left to solve a delegates numbers game which few, except perhaps the Clintons, can predict. Senator Clinton’s dominance of the Democratic establishment should allow her to win the majority of the 796 ex officio super-delegates allotted to party dignitaries and functionaries, who have been studiously wooed ever since the Clintons entered the White House. Her ruse to ratify at the Denver convention the spoiled delegates in Wisconsin and Florida may prove the key to this closely run race.

Last night Mrs. Clinton showed how steely political experience may ensure her victory not only in the Democratic race, but in the general election.

nwapshott@nysun.com