PRIMARY CONCERNS

Ohio OBAMBA 44% CLINTON 54%

Rhode Island OBAMA 40% CLINTON 58%

Texas OBAMA 51% CLINTON 48% (approx)

Vermont OBAMA 60% CLINTON 38%


Delegate count OBAMA 1,307 CLINTON 1,175


There’s is the result of last night’s primaries. Clinton won Ohio by ten points and Rhode Island by almost twenty. Obama won Vermont by twenty points and Texas by only a couple. The overall result is that Obama has gained four delegates and now leads by 132. Hillary might be able to catch up before the convention this summer, and I might be able to lower my golf score twenty points by the same time. But I wouldn’t bet on either one.

For now, the Democratic primary rolls on. Many senior party members will be encouraging Hillary to step aside ... you know, for the sake of the party. Despite my support for Obama, I disagree. She has fought a tough campaign and deserves to go down swinging, if that’s what she wants. Or win, you never know. It is very much the American way.

What Sen. Clinton will probably do is try to stick it out till the convention, then push the rules committee into bending some her way. She’ll want Florida’s delegates to be counted, even thought they’ve already been disqualified, and she’ll want the super delegates to vote for her, since she won the big states and is therefore more likely to win them in the general election. In other words, while she is unwilling to step aside for the sake of the party now, she will argue that the super delegates should ignore the popular vote and make her the candidate for the sake of the party later. I think it's worth mentioning that just because Hillary was able to beat Obama in these big states does not mean that she will be able to beat McCain in the same states.

This morning on TODAY, looking a little the worse for wear after along night in Ohio, Hillary hammered away at the same old rhetoric: she’s the one with the experience to be commander in chief, to steward the economy and provide universal health care. There is only one training program for the presidency, and that is sitting at the desk in the Oval Office. Not being married to the guy sitting at the desk, but actually sitting there and being forced to make those unthinkable life-and-death decisions. Beyond that, it is all conjecture.

As for her “solutions” for the economy and health care, saying it is one thing, making it happen is a whole other deal, as she should well know. Despite her claims to the contrary, Hillary has no more solutions than Obama. She is simply following the age old political tactic of the big lie: If you repeat something often enough, people will eventually believe it, or at the very least, they'll get so tired of hearing you say it that they'll vote for you in the desperate hope that you'll stop talking.

Whatever happens, we’re in for one very long primary season, the ultimate winner of which is by no means assured. However, if McCain continue on the path of last night’s acceptance speech, none of us will make it to the end – we’ll all be bored to death.

a foot on either side