The Super Tuesday dust has finally settled, and unfortunately for Republicans and Democrats alike, two candidates who ran insurgent campaigns and drew many first-time voters to the polls are now officially the odd men out.

Texas Gov. George W. Bush gave Arizona Sen. John McCain a harsh drubbing in the Super Tuesday contest, collecting the lion’s share of the delegates and reclaiming his position as the inevitable Republican nominee. Former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley fared even worse, not winning a single state and all but conceding the Democratic nomination to Vice President Al Gore.

Bradley has announced that he will leave the race. McCain was more coy about the subject, but even his closest aides were acknowledging that he will probably be leaving the race as early as this week.

So now American voters are left with the dull and duller choice between Bush and Gore. Although the candidates themselves aren’t too effective in getting voters interested in their issues (whatever they may be), both Gore and Bush ran fairly nasty campaigns against their rivals.

Gore attacked Bradley on his health-care plan, and Bush’s camp reportedly used the practice of push polling in South Carolina’s contest. While McCain showed his anger publicly about what he characterized as Bush’s unfair attacks, Bradley didn’t do enough to stand up to Gore until the bitter end of his campaign.

Both tactics in handling their opponents’ negative campaigning probably brought out the worst in each candidate: McCain got too angry, when there was already enough rumors about his supposedly out-of-control temper, and Bradley stayed way too mellow, not showing any sort of passion for the issues or his own campaign in general.

Both men were blessed with somewhat-to-fairly inept staffs, which just won’t cut it when they’re nose-to-nose with Bush, who uses his daddy’s winning campaign team, and Gore, who’s already been a part of two successful presidential campaigns.

It’s not a surprise that Bradley and McCain aren’t going to be the nominees of their respective parties. But both brought some interesting ideas to the table and gave the media something a little bit more interesting to examine than Bush and Gore. Their campaigns shouldn’t be seen as failures; both men got a lot of people excited about politics who had never even voted in a primary before.

And now that there’s basically just two candidates left standing (sorry, Alan Keyes), here’s a tip for both the Gore and Bush campaigns: Articulate your messages effectively, and please, for the voters’ sake, try not to go as negative on each other as you did with your previous opponents.

Iowa State Daily Editorial Board: Sara Ziegler, Greg Jerrett, Kate Kompas, Carrie Tett and David Roepke.