It's Silly Time

Back on the night I graduated from High School, we stayed up all night. Now, we were the good Christian kids, so we didn't do anything illegal. But we did stay up all night, and at about 3 or 4 in the morning, watching TV (this was back before there was 24 hour cable channels) the programming was not top notch, but we sat there laughing at what we were watching. We were laughing because we were too tired to have a clue about what was going on.
Well, this Democratic campaign has gone on so long that we are definitely in silly time. Especially due to the bizarre decision to front load the primary season we've had this six week lull. And so the media, with nothing else to do, has managed to dissect everything said and done and given candidates plenty of room to "respond."
So, Barack Obama is being criticized for saying John McCain would be an improvement on George Bush -- what's the big deal. I'm not a McCain supporter, and he has significant liabilities, but he'd be an improvement. Just about anyone besides Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld would be an improvement. That doesn't mean Obama was endorsing him or even undercutting the contention that a McCain administration would continue Bush policies -- because he would. Of course, that Hillary would use this against Barack is odd, considering that she and Bill have made it clear that Hillary and McCain would be friendly rivals and that McCain is better equipped to be President that Barack.
The realities are clear. If Barack wins tonight -- which would be a significant upset considering that Hillary has had the backing of the Pennsylvania establishment (something that outweighs the money Obama has had to spend on advertising) -- it is likely that the Superdelegates will begin to migrate to him. If she wins by a small margin, which seem more likely, some will watch exit polls to see who voted for him and for her, but it she won't make much of a dent in his delegate lead nor really in terms of popular vote. But that being said, she likely will continue the fight for at least a couple more primaries. Her real hope to upend him is to win really big -- and by big I'd say take well more than 60%. A win is not a win here. She won Texas, but not by much and he ended up with more delegates.
Her strategy seems to be -- push this as long as possible, throw as much at him as possible, and hope that he makes a big blunder. He's made a few mistakes, but nothing earth shattering. But, there's that "audacity of hope" thing -- she really believes that if she has enough hope it'll happen. But, we'll see.
So, soon, hopefully, silly time will be over and we can begin planning for November!

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