I have to be completely honest here... as I watched Hillary's non-concession speech after Obama had locked up the nomination on Tuesday night, I was filled with trepidation. After hearing Harold Ickes, Hillary's chief campaign strategist, at last Saturday's Rules and By-Laws Committee meeting threatening to take this fight to the convention, could you blame me? A floor-fight at the convention would have been catastrophic to our chances of retaking the White House and probably would have ensured John McCain of the presidency. But I tried to not say very much about it as I wanted to see how things would play out over the following days before really commenting.

We've been hearing the rumblings since Wednesday, but Hillary officially suspended her bid for the White House with a very powerful, very emotionally charged speech and strong endorsement of Barack Obama today. Obviously, if you read my blog regularly, you know that I was never on board the Team Clinton bus. As I've said many times in past writings, I respect the work Hillary does in the Senate on behalf of all of us. But as the primaries wore on, I became very vocal and very critical of her for employing campaign tactics I felt were beneath her and beneath the dignity of the candidate I wanted to see become the next President of the United States.

But I believe in giving credit where credit is due and in my opinion, Hillary really stepped up and knocked one out of the park today. She could have tried taking this fight to the convention, she could have remained a divisive force and further fractured the Democratic party as the general election neared, but she chose to do what is in the best interests of this party and this country. She displayed a tremendous amount of leadership in trying to unite the Democratic party by getting behind Obama and encouraging her supporters to help propel him to the White House. Today's speech must have been extraordinarily difficult for her in that it's never easy to see your dreams fade away, but in the face of that, I thought that Hillary showed a tremendous amount of class, grace and dignity.

From her speech today:

I entered this race because I have an old-fashioned conviction: that public service is about helping people solve their problems and live their dreams. I’ve had every opportunity and blessing in my own life – and I want the same for all Americans. Until that day comes, you will always find me on the front lines of democracy – fighting for the future.

The way to continue our fight now – to accomplish the goals for which we stand – is to take our energy, our passion, our strength and do all we can to help elect Barack Obama the next President of the United States.

Today, as I suspend my campaign, I congratulate him on the victory he has won and the extraordinary race he has run. I endorse him, and throw my full support behind him. And I ask all of you to join me in working as hard for Barack Obama as you have for me.

I have served in the Senate with him for four years. I have been in this campaign with him for 16 months. I have stood on the stage and gone toe-to-toe with him in 22 debates. I have had a front row seat to his candidacy, and I have seen his strength and determination, his grace and his grit.

And this:

We cannot let this moment slip away. We have come too far and accomplished too much.

Now the journey ahead will not be easy. Some will say we can’t do it. That it’s too hard. That we’re just not up to the task. But for as long as America has existed, it has been the American way to reject "can’t do" claims, and to choose instead to stretch the boundaries of the possible through hard work, determination, and a pioneering spirit.

It is this belief, this optimism, that Senator Obama and I share, and that has inspired so many millions of our supporters to make their voices heard.

So today, I am standing with Senator Obama to say: Yes we can.

There is no question that Hillary's run was courageous, historic, ground-breaking and barrier-shattering. We will see a woman in the White House and I hope against hope that it is within my lifetime. When that day comes, we will have Hillary Clinton to thank for paving the way, for making it easier for a woman to be taken seriously and be seen as a force to be reckoned with. And when that day comes, I think this country will be all the better for it.

As we gather here today in this historic magnificent building, the 50th woman to leave this Earth is orbiting overhead. If we can blast 50 women into space, we will someday launch a woman into the White House.

Although we weren’t able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it’s got about 18 million cracks in it. And the light is shining through like never before, filling us all with the hope and the sure knowledge that the path will be a little easier next time. That has always been the history of progress in America.

Though it couldn't have been easy, I believe that Hillary did the right thing today and showed the kind of courage and leadership I want out of my Democratic party. I very sincerely applaud and thank Hillary Clinton for the strength and leadership she demonstrated today.

Here are the clips of Hillary's speech if you haven't seen it... It's broken into two parts for some odd reason... Definitely worth the viewing.





And just a quick note to all of those out there who have showed a distinct lack of graciousness or feel compelled to rub the noses of Hillary's supporters in it... Just. Shut. Up. Seriously. Shut. Up. There is no call nor any need for the sort of disgraceful behavior of some that I've seen around these internets today. Stop parsing her words or criticizing her because she said this or didn't say that. Stop bashing her for not being deferential enough to Obama. And stop trying to read between the lines and providing your own interpretation. Show the kind of respect, dignity and class that Hillary showed us today. This is the time to come together, to bridge the divides and heal our wounds so that we can then to turn around and, as a united front, kick the piss out of John McCain and the Republicans this November. This is our time... this is our moment... and we can seize it if we stand together, as one united front.

Benjamin Franklin put it best by saying:

We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.

... is the massive spin that continues to come off of the corporate media and Team Clinton in the wake of the Pennsylvania primary…

So Tuesday night I was, of course, where you’d expect to find me on a primary night… glued to the tube, watching the returns coming in. And it turned out just about how I thought it was going to go… Hillary carried the state by 9 points. Okay, I predicted 7… I was 2 points off, so sue me.

But what’s alternately amused and appalled me is the spin and pure bullpuckey that’s been flowing for the last few days. It’s just fantastic yet sickening stuff, really. Since Tuesday night, we’ve been subjected to the media blathering on and on and on about what a huge win this was for Team Clinton, about how she’s back in the race, how this was a “humiliating defeat” for Obama, that he was dealt a near mortal blow… blah, blah, blah… The spin that has come out in the last few days has been nothing short of awe-inspiring for its sheer ridiculousness. How some of these folks are able to spew this tripe… and keep a straight face while doing so… is nothing short of amazing.

But let’s inject a little reality here, now shall we? Follow me down the rabbit hole if you're so inclined...

( Reality Check Below the Cut )

And now, here’s a little video entertainment for you to enjoy…

Well here we are on the eve of the Pennsylvania primary... finally. It's been what, 6 or 7 weeks since the last one? And in that time, things have just gotten progressively nastier, haven't they? I'm so ready for the Democratic primaries to be over so we can start turning our attention to what really matters... beating the snot out of John McCain.

My prediction is that Hillary is going to carry the state. Narrowly. I believe that she won't win by more than 7 points or so. Which, considering she once held a lead in Pennsylvania between 20-25 points, would be something of a disaster. Team Clinton has already been moving to downplay the significance the margin of victory poses, but I think it does matter. If you look at the latest polling, it has Hillary ahead by 5 points with a margin of error of +/- 4. The polls also say that as of today, the undecideds were still at 8%. So depending on how things break, Obama could lose by 17 points or win by 9 or 10. It's still a little too convoluted to say for sure right now. But my gut feeling is that Hillary is going to carry the state by 7 points or less... which in terms of the pledged delegates awarded and the popular vote, wouldn't cut into Obama's substantial lead very much. Secretly, I'm hoping that Obama will pull of the NY Giants-sized upset, but I don't know that that is going to happen. I'm keeping my fingers crossed though.

I think it's important that Obama do well in Pennsylvania tomorrow for a couple of reasons. For one, I think that if he shows strong in a state that he wasn't expected to do well in as little as a month ago, some of these stinking Superdelegates will finally get off the fence and start putting and end to this mess. The second is that if Hillary shows poorly or even loses tomorrow, I'm hopeful that will force her to consider putting an end to her bid for the White House. At this point, with all of the Republican-style tactics and negative campaigning, all she is doing is tearing this party apart. These primaries need to be over and we need a nominee like yesterday. The only person this protracted primary mess is benefiting is McCain. He's been getting a free ride on a lot of stuff since he wrapped up his party's nomination and that needs to end.

So... what are your predictions for tomorrow? Who is going to win Pennsylvania? Hillary or Barack? Will it be a blowout or a squeaker? Time to sound off... what's your call?

Silly me... I thought that last night's Presidential debate was on ABC. Apparently, Faux News jumped in to conduct the debate when I wasn't looking. Last night's debate was absolutely atrocious. It was downright sickening. And I hereby cordially invite George Stephanopolous and Charlie Gibson to pucker up and kiss my ass. They have taken douchebaggery to new heights... or depths... whichever way you prefer to view it. Here I thought that moderators were supposed to be impartial and direct the course of the debate to the substantive issues. Silly me. What Stephanopolous and Gibson did was not moderate a debate. Oh no. They coordinated a prolonged bash and slam session against Barack Obama. And instead of focusing on the substantive issues as the candidates head into key states like Pennsylvania, Indiana and North Carolina, Stephanopolous and Gibson decided it was more important to focus on every right-wing smear, every piece of salacious gossip and every single non-story that has been whipped into a firestorm by the punditocracy. Yeah because that crap is so much more important than letting the candidates make their cases on the issues to the voters in those states, allowing them to make informed decisions.

For the first hour of the debate, Stephanopolous and Gibson peppered Obama with idiotic questions about "Bitter-gate," Jeremiah Wright and whether or not the Reverend loves America, Obama's lapel pins or lack thereof, whether or not Obama loved the flag, his non-existent "connections" to the radical group the Weather Underground and the like. Stephanopolous and Gibson hammered so long and so hard on Obama that at one point, they actually had to apologize to Hillary for not allowing her much time to speak. Underscoring the Obama-bashing theme of the evening was the fact that earlier in the day, Stephanopolous had appeared on right-wing idiot Sean Hannity's radio program and asked Obama a question... almost verbatim... about his "connection" to the Weather Underground and William Ayres that Hannity had pitched to him. Attempting to appear fair and balanced I guess, Hillary was asked a softball question about her lies concerning the sniper fire she claimed to have dodged on her trip to Bosnia. Hillary was allowed to basically give a non-answer to the question, blaming it on being "tired" and tossed out some line about making sure to get more sleep. And that was it. No follow-up questions, of which there should have been plenty. Hillary was also allowed to pile on during the Obama Slam-Fest by saying things like his "connection" to William Ayres and the Weather Underground raised "questions" about him or that Jeremiah Wright's comments "deserved" to be "explored more thoroughly." This whole sham was just a sick, pathetic exercise.

All the pundits could talk about today was that Obama was on the defensive and blah, blah, blah... But I believe that he handled himself quite well in the face of such an onslaught of Rovian and Republican-style bulls**t. At one point, after Hillary went off about his "connections" to William Ayres... and by "connections" she means that Obama sat on the same advisory board as Ayres... Obama correctly pointed out that her husband had done more for the Weather Underground by pardoning two of the men as he left office than he had by sitting on an advisory board with Ayres. Obama was firm and authoritative in deflecting the attacks being leveled against him and continually tried to bring the debate back around to substantive issues and even defended Hillary at several points.. I was happy to see Obama take up the Edwards mantra that this petty back and forth attacks aren't doing anything to help the people get jobs or health insurance, take care of their kids or fix the economy. That was something Edwards repeated over and over again, so as an Edwards guy, I was very happy to see that.

Hillary's camp continues to question his toughness in the face of the Republican smear machine that is waiting in the wings. But I just have to say, after facing the Clinton smear machine in these primaries, Obama has gained plenty of experience and toughness and I feel he's ready for anything and everything John McCain and the Rethuglicans are going to throw at him. In my opinion, despite all of the crap they slung at him last night, Obama came out smelling like a rose. And the polling seems to agree with that.

This debate was nothing but a farce... a sham. Stephanopolous and Gibson should be embarrassed for their lack of professionalism and integrity. They should be ashamed for claiming to be neutral and impartial when they were anything but. This was nothing more than a mugging and a blatant political hit-job masquerading as an honest debate. These two clowns aren't fit to moderate an 8th grade Student Council debate.

George Stephanopolous and Charlie Gibson are your... douchebags of the week.

Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont has finally said what I imagine many in Washington are saying these days... he believes that Hillary should drop out of the race and throw her support behind Obama for the good of the party.

Leahy and many other Democratic leaders are concerned (and they should be) that the longer this process drags on, the more damage it will do to the party and to the hopes of getting a Democrat back into the White House this November. The continued sniping and bickering is doing nothing but damaging both Hillary and Obama as candidates and it's leaving the door open for John McCain. Not to mention the fact that Team Clinton hasn't done their candidate any favors over these last few weeks.

From a written statement, Leahy said:

"McCain has been making mistakes but is getting a free ride on those gaffes, because the Democratic candidates have to focus not on him but on each other."

And Senator Leahy is right. Raise your hand if you knew that John McCain is currently breaking Federal law? My best guess is not many people knew that because the media is too busy covering the Hillary/Obama catfight to actually report on the news. Of course, the fact that the media have their lips firmly planted on McCain's ass might also be contributing to that as well.

But it's time to face reality. The odds of Hillary winning the nomination outright are about as likely as Bush winning a spelling bee. She would have to win every remaining primary by at least 40-45 points. And even that might not be enough. She's way behind in the delegate count, she trails in the popular vote, Obama is pulling in all of the superdelegate support not to mention the fact that superdelegates from Hillary's camp are now heading over to Obama's. Her momentum is gone. She can crow about winning Ohio and winning Texas, but she ended up losing the delegate count in Texas and the net delegate gain in Ohio was negligible.

Oh sure, there's still the battle over Michigan and Florida... which to me is absolutely ridiculous and stinks of hypocrisy. First of all, Michigan and Florida were off the table to begin with. These were the punishments handed down by the DNC and these were rules that ALL of the candidates, even Hillary, agreed to. Yet, she went back on her word and refused to take her name off the Michigan ballot. And now her stance is that those delegates should be seated because failure to do so would be disenfranchising millions of voters. And yet, she wants the superdelegates (which is the ONLY way she can win the nomination) to overturn the will of the people, thus disenfranchising even MORE people. And I happen to know that if she were ahead right now, she wouldn't be fighting so hard for the people of Michigan and Florida. This is not about voting rights so much as it's about her pursuit of power at all costs.

Dragging this out until the convention is going to do incredible damage to the party. If this thing drags out to the convention, get yourselves ready to say, "President McCain." The convention isn't until August, so if we don't have a candidate before then, mounting an effective campaign against McCain is going to be incredibly difficult to pull off. Not to mention the free ride on everything he's getting right now, as Senator Leahy rightly mentioned.

It's time for Hillary to do right by the Democratic party and by the country and drop out of the race. This win at all costs, even if that cost is burning down the Democratic party is unconscionable. Too much is at stake to screw the pooch on this one. This country cannot afford a President McCain... this country cannot afford another four years of Bush's policies... which is exactly what we'll get with McCain. Hillary's stubborn refusal to do the right thing is opening the door for McCain and the Republicans to seize power once more.

The tribe has spoken, Hillary. It's time you listened.

What about you, good gentles? Where do you stand on this? Should Hillary drop out of the race or should she hang in there as long as she can?

Well, it seems as if many, many, many people are ready, eager and willing to start throwing dirt on the coffin of Senator Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Sure, she’s trailing Barack Obama in the total number of delegates (by more than 100), the popular vote (by nearly a million), number of states won (by roughly a 2-1 margin) and virtually every other significant category. And yes, since Super Tuesday, Obama has won a majority of the pledged delegates, picked up the endorsements of virtually every superdelegate that’s come out to support a candidate, had several high-profile superdelegates defect to Obama’s camp, has had her campaign rocked by controversy after controversy and would need to win every remaining primary by at least 40 points to have a shot at the nomination, but so what? Hillary Clinton is in this for the long haul, baby, because she’s ready on Day 1.

Not only is she in for the long haul, but Team Clinton has actually found a category she’s beating Barack Obama in! Believe it, sports fans. Team Clinton has done the math and by a count of 219-202, Senator Clinton is currently beating Senator Obama in the… ready for it? The Electoral College. Ahem. I think that’s just fantastic! Except for the fact that you’d have to ignore Hillary’s past comments about the Electoral College… most specifically about banning it…

“I believe strongly that in a democracy, we should respect the will of the people and to me, that means it’s time to do away with the Electoral College and move to the popular election of our president.”

But just forget that… that’s old news. Just pretend you never saw that because you just have to admire that kind of tenacity, that kind of ingenuity, that kind of… pluck!

And because I admire that sort of pluckiness, because I admire those that keep on fighting loooooooong after the writing on the wall that tells me that I’m doing more damage to my party and to my country by staying in the race and playing dirty, nasty, Republican-style ball and that half of the country hates me, I’ve decided to lend a hand to Senator Clinton’s campaign. I figured surely there are numbers being overlooked here. Surely there is some little ray of sunshine that I can unearth to bring hope once again back to Team Clinton.

So, like a baseball statistician, I have meticulously analyzed all of the data, broken down every last demographic and factored in every little piece of useless minutiae imaginable. And after sifting through that vast amount of information, I’ve been shocked to discover that there actually are many, many, many areas in which Senator Clinton is in fact, trouncing Senator Obama this primary season. Though some may scoff at what they might perceive to be a lack of substance or credibility to these obviously key demographics, I think these help paint a more complete picture. Sure, Obama is leading in all of those demographic areas that the media deems to be important, but I’ve discovered many very key, but thoroughly overlooked demographics.

And so after countless hours spent tirelessly crunching the numbers, scrutinizing every fact and figure, here are the key demographic breakouts showing, beyond the shadow of a doubt that not only is Hillary Clinton’s campaign alive and well, but that she’s beating the snot out of Barack Obama in the Democratic primaries. It’s just that there is a vast left-wing media conspiracy to keep these facts out of the public’s eye!

And so without futher ado, here are the key demographic areas that prove Hillary is actually crushing Obama…

Among male voters with a serious “cougar” fetish, Senator Clinton holds a commanding 95-5 % lead.

Among voters who pass the “Commander in Chief” test, Senator Clinton leads 76-24%.

Among voters who are ready, willing and able to answer that phone at 3 a.m., Senator Clinton is dominating 82-18%.

Among voters that have repeatedly lied (or repeatedly misspoke) about being mugged, carjacked or shot at by snipers while in another country in an effort to look cool and/or tough, Senator Clinton is crushing Senator Obama 89-11%.

Among voters who are bringing a lifetime of experience into the voting booths with them, Senator Clinton is carrying a 79-21% advantage.

Among voters who have nothing but a speech, Senator Clinton has a 67-33% edge.

Among voters who feel that they too would be ready on Day 1, Senator Clinton is firmly in front, 78-22%

Among voters who have sold or are willing to sell their souls in pursuit of absolute power, Senator Clinton is wiping out Senator Obama, 88-12%

Among voters that have received money and/or support from Rupert Murdoch and various other entities at Faux News, Senator Clinton holds a seemingly insurmountable 96-4% advantage.

Among voters who have received money from defense contractors, big pharmaceutical companies, big oil companies, banking/credit institutions and other corporations that rake in the profits while screwing the average American, Senator Clinton is leading Senator Obama by a margin of 90-10%.

Among voters who would have dumped their pastor/rabbi/priest/yoga master long, long before their controversial remarks became a YouTube hit, Senator Clinton has a solid lead at 73-27%.

Among voters who have a win-at-all-costs-no-matter-the-damage-to-the-party-and-the-country attitude, Senator Clinton has a decisive edge, 82-18%.

Among voters who have ever accused somebody of plagiarism, even when there was no actual plagiarism, Senator Clinton leads 77-23%.

Among voters that have boasted of their relevance and experience only to have private papers released that contradict those statements, Senator Clinton leads 87-13%.

Among voters that think Senator Joe Lieberman is a swell guy and a good Democrat, Senator Clinton has a commanding lead, 93-7%.

Among voters that don’t think honesty, morals, scruples, integrity or good judgment are overly important, Senator Clinton is absolutely dominating, 98-2%.

So as you can see, Senator Clinton is far from done. In fact, if you look at these statistics, you can clearly see that Hillary is absolutely kicking the crap out of Barack Obama. It’s the far left-wing liberal media that simply refuses to report on the facts.

I am entirely hopeful that bringing these facts to light will help Team Clinton's cause and will show the American people that it's the media that's force-feeding Barack Obama to all of us. But Team Clinton shall stand resolute. They will fight against the liberal media machine and like some undead creature, Team Clinton is going to shuffle along, destroying everything in their path... everything and everybody be damned. Team Clinton will see you in Denver in August. Assuming she hasn't annihilated the Democratic Party by then.

This is going to be a bit of a rant, I'm afraid... apologies in advance to those who suffer through it...

If you read my blog with any regularity, you know it’s no secret that I’ve never believed that Hillary is our best candidate for the presidency. Though not my first choice, I did believe that she’d make a good and capable Commander in Chief and that if she ended up as our nominee, that I’d happily cast my vote for her. I’ve always had a level of respect for her and though I disagree very, very strongly with some votes she’s cast in the Senate, I think that overall, she’s got a pretty solid voting record. Face it, we’re never going to like every single vote our elected officials cast… there are some votes that Barbara Boxer, (who is a friggin’ saint/deity/rock star to me) has cast that I don’t particularly like. But overall, Senator Clinton, like Senator Boxer, is trying to do what she believes is best for her constituents and for the country and I find that I have to respect that. And though I strongly disagree with Hillary on several policy issues, I never believed that she’d ever compete with somebody like Holy Joe Lieberman (R-Conn.) in the Great American Douchebaggery Sweepstakes. But oh, how wrong and naïve I was.

( More Below the Fold )

Throughout this entire primary process, I’ve been in awe of the seeming embarrassment of riches on our side of the aisle. Up and down the slate, we’ve had a slew of great candidates… Dodd, Biden, Kucinich, Edwards… and though very disappointed that my candidate dropped out of the race, I believed that I would be proud to cast my vote for any of them. But after watching the way Hillary has conducted her campaign over these last few weeks, after watching her employ those horrific and divisive right-wing tactics, my opinion of her has absolutely plummeted. I’ve come to regard her as somebody who will do anything to win, not for the good of the people, but for her own personal gain. Even if that win comes at the cost of completely fracturing the Democratic Party and making it that much easier for the Republicans to steal yet another election.

I absolutely despise and am repulsed by the tactics the Clinton camp has employed and I’ve lost a ton of respect for Hillary herself. Even still, if she somehow manages to weasel her way into the nomination, I’ve got no choice but to vote for her. As repugnant as I find her right now, she is still better than McCain… though that’s not exactly saying very much. But if I’m forced to, I’ll hold my nose and vote for her simply because there is too much at stake to risk letting McCain and the Republicans have the White House for another 4 days let alone another 4 years.

I am hoping beyond hope that the people send Hillary a very sharp, stinging rebuke and that she is absolutely crushed in today’s primary contests. I’m hoping that the voters in Vermont, Rhode Island, Ohio and Texas send her a message loud and clear that employing these Republican-style attack tactics is way over-the-line and absolutely unacceptable. And I hope that message comes in the form of total and complete electoral obliteration. We can have a substantive, focused and critical debate on the issues without resorting to cheap Rovian-style personal attacks or distortions of the truth. Our candidates can run tough campaigns without racing to the bottom and using Bush-style fearmongering to get ahead. We’ve had more than 7 years of that garbage and we’re tired of it, we don’t need any more. Obviously, these are things that Hillary’s 35 years of Washington experience failed to teach her.

Let me just end this little rant with a quote from the Big Dog himself… this is from Bill Clinton back in his own campaigning days…

"If one candidate is trying to scare you and the other one is trying to get you to think, if one candidate is appealing to your fears and the other one is appealing to your hopes, you better vote for the person who wants you to think and hope."

Well said, Bill.

The delegate counts are tight and the battle is heated, but is Hillary Clinton’s run for the White House essentially done? Has Barack Obama not only caught, but passed her for good? Personally, I think so. I think Super Tuesday may well have been Hillary’s Waterloo and now we’re just waiting for her once mighty political machine to finally grind to a halt. Looking at the numbers, it seems that her campaign has been in a steady downward spiral while the juggernaut that is Obama’s campaign has picked up momentum and has shown no signs of slowing down. On the fundraising front alone, reporting for the month of January showed that Obama raised a staggering $32 million, drawing in more than 100,000 new small-amount donors while Hillary pulled in a relatively meager $13 million in campaign contributions. In fact, Hillary’s fundraising has cooled down to the point that she had to personally loan her campaign $5 million bucks. It’s never a good sign when you have to fund your own campaign by cracking you’re your own piggy bank to remain viable. Ask Mitt Romney.

The post-Super Tuesday spin coming out of the Clinton camp was that they’d won a great victory and that they’d stopped the momentum of the Obama campaign in its tracks. Actually… yeah… not so much. Personally, I think that Super Tuesday was nothing short of disastrous for Hillary and marked the beginning of the end of her candidacy. If you looked at the raw numbers, you’d see an entirely different story than the one spinning out of the Clinton campaign. One of the biggest indicators I see is that states where Hillary had enjoyed large margins of support fell nearly completely flat for her. Take California for instance… As late as two weeks before the primary, Hillary had a comfortable lead in the polls… some has high as 30-35%. She won the state, but by a margin of only 10 points… and that is in some dispute as nearly 100,000 ballots cast by independent voters in LA County alone were not and will not be counted. The reason so many people were disenfranchised is fodder for another post, but needless to say, with a high majority of indy voters breaking for Obama, it would have tightened the race considerably. Would it have put him over the top in California? Probably not, but he would have picked up more delegates than he did in the Golden State. Hillary enjoyed very comfortable leads in many states leading up to Super Tuesday only to see those margins shrink and in some cases like Missouri, disappear altogether. Many, many people believed that it would be a very good night for Obama if he managed to stay within a couple of hundred delegates of Hillary. Pundits, Hillary-supporters and Clinton campaign insiders alike began speculating that Super Tuesday would be the night she began to run away with it, solidifying her status as the Democratic Party’s front-runner. Yeah well, as we all know, Super Tuesday didn’t quite turn out the way they’d planned. Not only did Obama win the state count 13-8 (New Mexico still isn’t done counting their ballots), but at the end of the night, he was virtually tied with Hillary in the delegate count. That doesn’t exactly sound like a momentum-stopper to me.

The news didn’t get any better over this past weekend as the Clinton campaign was absolutely manhandled in five primary/caucus competitions. Granted, the number of delegates at stake wasn’t exceedingly high, out of the 169 pledged delegates that were at stake, Obama took 107 of them. But in terms of momentum, in terms of the psychological impact on the Clinton campaign and on the minds of the voters, it was a beatdown of epic proportions. In none of the five contests was Hillary closer than the 19 points she lost by in Maine. She was crushed in Louisiana by 21 points… in Nebraska by 36 points, in Washington by 37 points and in the US Virgin Islands (which has 3 delegates, believe it or not) by 84 points. Hillary was just dominated from start to finish. Only because delegates are divided proportionally in the Democratic primaries did Hillary manage to snag the delegates she did get. Otherwise, it may have been a very clean sweep last weekend. And in the wake of that disaster, I don’t feel that Hillary did herself any favors by adding fuel to the perception that her campaign is in disarray by replacing her campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle with her longtime trusted aide, Maggie Williams. It seems to me to be a move made out of sheer desperation, trying to put one last jolt of life into a candidacy in serious, serious trouble.

Add it all up… having to infuse her campaign with her own money, getting smoked in contest after contest, shaking up her campaign staff late in the game… Instead of cruising as the clear front-runner and heir-apparent, Hillary has found herself in a nasty dogfight and seems to be quickly running out of steam.

Here are some numbers for ya’ll to chew on. Granted, the only numbers that count right now are the number of delegates, but these are somewhat interesting…

Delegate Count (before today’s primary results)
Obama – 1,121 (986 pledged; 135 superdelegates)
Clinton – 1,148 (924 pldeged; 224 superdelegates)

Number of states won – Obama 20; Clinton 11
Number of states won by 10-30% - Obama 5; Clinton 5
Number of states won by 20-30% - Obama 4; Clinton 1
Number of states won by 30-40% - Obama 6; Clinton 1
Number of states won by 50% + - Obama 3; Clinton 0

So will Barack Obama continue his domination and sweep today’s Potomac Primaries in Maryland, Virginia and Washington DC? Or will Hillary manage to snap his winning streak and regain some momentum of her own? Will she pull it out or is she done? What say you all?