Super Tuesday 2000 accomplished exactly what the fixers designed it to do, by enabling the two party establishment favourites to rack up emphatic wins in yesterday's contests which effectively end their respective challengers' hopes. The contest in November will be Al Gore v George W Bush, just as the party bosses planned. Bill Bradley won't you please go home now. And bye bye Johnnie McCain.

On the Democratic side, last night's results were a triple triumph for Al Gore. Not only did the vice-president knock down Bill Bradley's challenge everywhere that it raised its head, giving Gore eleven wins out of eleven yesterday. He also won each contest by a distance. And, in addition, Gore had the satisfaction of accomplishing a shut-out mission that he himself helped to plan.

The vice-president's wins were big. Gore won in California, where Bradley was supposed to have so much Silicon Valley support; he won in New York, where Bradley was meant to be rewarded for those idolised years on the Knicks' basketball court; he won in Missouri, where Bradley was born and raised; he won in New England, where Democrats are supposed to lean to the kind of gentle left alternative which Bradley was offering. In most places, Gore didn't just defeat Bradley, he overwhelmed him. The margin was over 65 points in Georgia, a state with a moderate Democratic governor, a result which, in itself, is surely enough for Bradley to see the futility of continuing into next week, when there are six more southern primaries.

Assuming that Bradley now withdraws, as surely he will, the redesign of Super Tuesday 2000 has worked exactly the way that the Gore people anticipated. They themselves moved the California primary up the calendar from June to March precisely in order to make the largest state - which Gore has worked for years - count for more in the scheme of things. That made March 7 into a hurdle which only a well-funded, well-grounded candidate could clear. Yesterday was in every sense a victory for the Democratic machine that Al Gore controls.

But a mirror image triumph was played out yesterday on the Republican side too. March 7 was also tailor made for the frontrunner George W Bush, with his money, his endorsements, his organisation and his conservatism. Here too, the proliferation of contests enabled the front-runner to defeat an overextended rival. If California had not voted yesterday, McCain's clutch of little wins in New England states would look much more impressive than they do this morning, when they are eclipsed by his losses in California and elsewhere.

In terms of individual states won and lost in this campaign, McCain and Bush still remain more or less on competitive terms this morning. But today the weight and the momentum is all irresistibly with Bush. California, Ohio and a majority among voters in the byzantine politics of New York give the Texas governor the wins that mattered most.

A bad outlook for McCain only gets worse when you consider that the nine next Republican primaries - three in the western mountain states this weekend, and six in the south next week - all look to have Bush's name on them. This time next week, as McCain knows only too well, things will look even more formidably difficult than they already do today. It's no wonder that the McCain camp is massively divided this morning about almost every decision that it must now take. To carry on or to quit. To bolt to the Reform Party or not. To go back to the drawing board for 2004 or not.

Yet, listening to Bush and McCain address their supporters last night there was little doubt that they both recognised this was the decisive moment of the 2000 nominating campaign. Bush, like Gore, addressed himself to the November election not next week's primaries. McCain seemed to be signalling that, after a day or two of reflection, he will pull out. The mathematics of the delegate count for the national convention is simply against him.

And so it will be, as some intended and many feared, an establishment v establishment general election, though with two candidates who are far from interchangeable. The big question today, as the rebels prepare to retreat from the field, is what happens to their voters? It is not clear that either Bush or Gore holds any instant appeal for what, a couple of weeks ago, called itself "the McCain majority" Inevitably now, the Reform Party - under Pat Buchanan or even Ross Perot once again - looms as a bigger player in the new game. The bigger likelihood is that the political rebels will simply decide to sit this one out, reducing the turnout in November still further in a country where fewer than half of the electorate now vote in presidential elections.