Today is the political equivalent of Groundhog Day. The sewer rat saw his shadow, so now we have seven more weeks of bullshit.
I need to take a break from worrying about the national presidential campaign. Hillary Clinton had a good night in Ohio, Rhode Island and the Texas primary. My guy, Barack Obama, won Vermont and is leading this morning in the Texas caucus counting. According to the DailyKos, the biggest dent Hillary might make in her big delegate deficit is about one stinking delegate. There is an alternate scenario where Obama’s approximately 150 delegate lead remains exactly the same or even grows. Either way, Hillary has to duplicate her 18-point R.I. victory margin in most of the future primaries to close that delegate gap. That’s just not going to happen. So the question is if Clinton can raise enough doubts about Obama to get the superdelegates to switch back to her.
I’m thinking Obama is going to get a little rougher with Clinton than he has so far. She’s going to push the “red phone” crap because it works, despite its appeal to the worst elements of humanity.
One thing’s certain, the Democratic nominee will be stronger and battle tested as a result of this process. It’s a shame they might burn a quarter billion dollars just getting to the convention, but hey — it’s just money. Vast, unfathomable amounts of money.
On to Pennsylvania in seven long, probably unbearable, weeks of political campaigning and analysis.
UPDATE: DailyKos and the Obama campaign now say that Clinton’s delegate pickup from Tuesday will be more like 4-9 delegates, not just one. Still not much movement when she’s down anywhere from 80 to 150. And, when you include the Texas caucus results it’s looking like Obama will beat Clinton by three delegates there.
After yesterday, I’m officially not worrying about it anymore. There’s no way Clinton can sway the superdelegates unless she starts gaining in the regular delegate count. After last night, I think these contests will all be too close for that to happen.
In our house we’ve talked about how we need to take a break from it too. With the writer’s strike we could choose to watch crap reality shows or the coverage of the national election. So we’ve been watching way too much CNN & MSNBC. After last night I’m feeling a bit like it’s turning into a crap reality show.
It makes me sick to think that the super delegates could turn around what should happen. I just can’t see upsetting so many people without doing serious damage to the Democratic party. I just want Obama to start swinging back hard.
Shari