Until, of course, Spree was traded to the Knicks.  Overnight, I changed my tune from "the guy's a bum" to "brilliant move - everyone knows that Latrell Sprewell is the second-best two guard in the NBA. . . ."  Spree went on to justify my somewhat contrived faith in him.  He never tried to choke Jeff Van Gundy or any of his teammates and led an overachieving Knicks squad from the lowly eighth seed of the Eastern Conference to the NBA finals.  

I had lunch with an elected official (Democrat) in Portland, Maine last Tuesday, when the veep question was still up in the air, and asked him who he thought would get the nod.  "Biden" he said with a rather sheepish look on his face.  "Have you heard something?"  I inquired in disbelief.  He didn't answer the question directly, but just shook his head again.  "Looks like Biden," he said.  

I was absolutely incredulous.  "Biden?"  Ignoring my lunch, I stared out into space.  To me, Tim Kaine seemed like a no-brainer.  He's governor of Virginia, a swing state that Obama could win.  He's Catholic, which might come in handy when the inevitable anti-Obama infanticide commercials start airing in September.  He speaks fluent Spanish.  Si se puente, bitches!  Also, as first term governor of Virginia, he is decidedly not a Washington insider.  Change - that's why we're all still paying attention, right?

That night, I turned on the cable news networks to find that they were all over Biden.  What the frack? 

Like NBA players, I think there are two kinds of politicians - we'll call them Type A and Type B.  Type A players are the money athletes/politicians, those who make the key plays when real stakes are involved.  Type B people are capable of racking up all sorts of impressive stats when nothing is on the line (i.e. during the regular season), but never seem to rise to the occasion in the big game.

Now, don't get me wrong.  Generally, I think Biden is quite capable, and I know he has a distinguished record as a Senator and all of that.  He also has a well-documented knack for putting his foot in his mouth at the most inopportune time.  Remember how his 2008 presidential campaign started?  He announced he was running, and then almost immediately sabotaged his own chances by declaring that Obama was "clean" and "articulate" [for a black man].  Interestingly enough, after his presidential bid all but ended with that remark, he actually performed ably in the debates and otherwise comported himself like a man who could get the job done.  Nonetheless, when his presidential bid ground to a halt after Iowa, everyone I knew that was following the race breathed a sigh of relief.  As for me personally, I didn't quite get around to calling him a bum - more like a decent guy that everyone understood didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of being president.

As this week rolled on, I tried to reconcile myself to the possibility of an Obama-Biden ticket.  True, Biden may bring a certain gravitas to the ticket, and he is an Irish Catholic who speaks fluent white working class (I just reminded myself of the little old lady in "Airplane" who taps a stewardess on the shoulder as she's trying to communicate with two black passengers to let the stewardess know that she "speak[s] jive . . . ").  His foreign policy credentials are impeccable.  Bottom line - he's a white guy with white hair and lots of experience who can communicate with the very demographic that Obama hasn't yet mastered.  I get it.  Plus, Biden is a guy that you really want to like, especially given his tragic/heroic past as a family man.  Nonetheless, despite the rational arguments, something still nagged at me about Biden. 

Then I watched his speech on Saturday afternoon. As I listened to him "bluster," flub and gaffe his way through his (clearly under-rehearsed) inaugural speech as veep candidate, it hit me.  For all of his credentials and experience, Biden might be one of those Type B guys.  The contrast between Biden and Obama couldn't have been more pronounced, even with Obama mis-announcing Biden as the "next president of the United States."  Obama, despite his "inexperience," is clearly Type A, and gave a ringing, inspiring speech to open Saturday's festivities.  Then, well . . .Biden.  It wasn't exactly Hendrix following the Who at Monterey, if you know what I mean.  I will say that, despite the awkwardness of Biden's speech, it was delivered with Biden-esque passion and did have its high points. 

Even as I listened to the pundits declare the occasion a success, in the immediate aftermath of the speech, I kept picturing the (seemingly) inevitable Biden-Romney debate.  Romney sitting up there like the chameleon that he is, effortlessly confounding everyone by shifting his stance on any and all issues at will and right in front of our eyes, devilish/idiotic grin on his face, while Biden flub-dubbed along, fumbling and stumbling.  Yes, I know Biden performed much better than that during the recent Dem debates, but nonetheless, I couldn't get the vision out of my head. 

When I shared these thoughts with my wife, she shrugged.  "Maybe it's all theater," she said matter-of-factly. 

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Maybe that's his job.  You know, to NOT be the smooth one.  To talk to everyday people in their own language . . . "

At first, I dismissed this as nonsense.  Then, I saw one of those Michael Jordan/Cuba Gooding Jr. commercials for Hahnes' underwear and predictably started thinking about Jordan's championship teams.  Jordan, the ultimate example of a Type A player, didn't necessarily need a team full of ultra-alpha Type As, but instead found success when his talent was augmented by teammates who had specific roles to fill.  Teammates who were content with their limited role.  

"That's it!" I thought.  Biden can be a successful veep candidate IF he accepts his limited role and peforms it well.  However, one of the first things a role player needs to accept is that he is NOT the main guy.  Obama is the Jordan on this team, and Biden, well . .  .it remains to be seen whether he's more like a Scottie Pippen or a Steve Kerr.  Given Biden's prodigious mouth, his six Senate terms and his two presidential runs, it remains to be seen whether or not he can actually handle his new gig as the number two guy.

But the more I think about this ticket, the more it makes sense.  While Obama has clearly recognized the need to be more aggressive in attacking McCain, he's obviously more comfortable above the fray, where he can get away from politics as usual and perhaps reincarnate himself as the inspiring "change" candidate of a few months ago.  Biden is ready and able to fill the attack dog role, both offensively and defensively, which frees Obama up to do what he does best and most effectively.  In terms of the white working class voters, I don't suppose that Biden could do any worse with these voters than Obama's doing now.  Ditto for voters concerned with Obama's perceived lack of foreign policy experience.  

Either way, Biden is now a role player, and it will be most interesting to see: 1. how the Obama team decides to deploy Biden (besides the obvious attack-dog role); and 2. if Biden can come off the bench and get the job done for the Obama squad in the coming weeks without throwing the whole game in the process.

 Cross-posted at The Huffington Post - Off The Bus.

I can see McCain's commercial now.
Black screen, dramatic music:
Graphic: "Pledge: A solemn, binding promise"

Voice over:  "In 2007, Barack Obama made a pledge, a binding promise to take public funds to pay for the Presidential campaign if his opponent did the same."
genus: Concern

"John McCain, Obama's opponent, agreed to be bound by Obama's pledge."

"On June 19, 2008, Obama broke his pledge.  He broke his binding promise of faith and has decided to spend upwards of 500 Million dollars to buy the Presidency."

"He's not even President yet and he's already broken the first campaign promise he ever made."

"Since Obama has broken his first promise it won't be too difficult to break his 2nd, 3rd and 44th."

"John McCain, despite being offered early release, pledged that he would not be release from the Hanoi Hilton until all the other POWs were released.  Despite being held in solitary confinement for over one year and regularly beaten and tortured, John McCain kept his pledge."

"John McCain, a promise keeper, Barack Obama, the breaker of promises."

Picture of McCain w/ flowing US flag behind him:

"I'm John McCain and I approved this message."
"This ad paid for by John McCain for President."

But Hillary?  She petulantly refused to concede, notwithstanding the fact that Obama reached the magic number of delegates.  By doing so, she effectively spoiled what should have been a triumphant evening for the Party, initiating a new round of speculation and uncertainty and pissing off legions of voters and high-ranking Democrats in the process.

Why did she do this?  Because she wants something, obviously.  But what the hell does she want?  We still don't know because, although she posed the question to herself in her "victory" speech on Tuesday night, she refused to answer it directly. 

Nor is the rumor mill of any real assistance.  Earlier this week, the buzz was that Obama was going to offer her a cabinet position and pay off her campaign debts.  No word on whether this would be acceptable to her.  Then she let it slip that she'd be willing to be Obama's running mate if it would help the party.  Meanwhile, Howard Fineman reported on Tuesday night that according to his sources, Hillary only wants to be offered the VP position so that she can refuse it, and that Obama is perfectly willing to offer her the position if he's guaranteed in advance that she won't take it.  During the same broadcast, Tim Russert reported that according to his sources, Hillary does want the VP spot and all of her posturing and muscle-flexing of late is to this end.  Pundits were quick to pan Hillary for actively campaigning for the VP spot as a major faux-pas, which apparently prompted a Clinton aide to release a statement on Thursday stating that she is not seeking the VP spot, and that this decision is Obama's alone. 

Whatever she wants, some of her more vocal supporters have strongly suggested that unless she is appeased, they will not back Obama.  They'll vote for McCain, or they'll sit on their hands in November.

Put politely, I have a hard time believing that this threatened scenario will actually come to pass.  Of course, there are some die-hard Hillary supporters out there who, as Sam Stein reported a couple of days ago, really feel that Hillary has somehow been unfairly deprived of the nomination because she's a woman.  To those people I say two things.  One, undoubtedly there are sexist Democrats out there, just as there are racist Democrats.  Two, Hillary lost the nomination because she didn't have a plan after Super Tuesday and because Obama beat her soundly on the ground (grassroots organizing, etc), and through the air (inspirational oratory, etc). 

There are also women out there who feel that Hillary represented their best chance to have a woman elected president in their lifetime.  To those women, I say that I have a daughter, and I too would like to see a woman elected president during my lifetime.  But only if she's the right candidate.  Although I can't help but be excited at the prospect of this nation's first African-American president, I support Senator Obama because I feel that he's the right candidate, not because he's black.  Quite frankly, if a green hermaphrodite appeared on the scene and promised to end the Iraq war, invest a significant portion of the savings in the American people and otherwise make a firm commitment to the development of a hydrogen/electric-powered hovercraft fit for everyday use, I would vote for this person in a heartbeat.  How can anyone say no to a candidate on the right side of the hovercraft question?

More to the point, how can any HRC supporter that actually cares about the issues say with a straight face that if Hillary doesn't get what she wants, they're going to either vote for McCain or not vote at all?  In terms of their respective positions on the major issues facing this country, Obama and Clinton live on the same block in the same neighborhood, while McCain lives on another planet, some remote, barren world where everyone owns eight houses and 100 year wars are to be encouraged.  I would think that anyone who wants the troops out of Iraq, or that doesn't want to pay $4 a gallon for gas, is NOT going to sit on their hands, and is NOT going to vote for McCain/Bush . . .

. . .  unless, of course, Obama were to pick another woman as his running mate, without asking Hillary first.  Depending on the timing, a slight of this magnitude might really put the Hillary faithful over the edge.  If his numbers with white women over 50 don't improve in the next couple of months, Obama just may find himself in the compromising position of having to ask Hillary to serve as VP so she can turn it down, before considering other women VP candidates.

My intent is not to denigrate these voters, but instead to voice my opinion that I just don't think a majority of Hillary's supporters are actually going to forsake Obama in November.  I believe that in 2008, the American electorate is too intelligent, too informed, and too pissed off at the Bush administration to either cast some sort of vengeful retaliatory vote for McCain or to abandon the field altogether.

Cross-posted at The Huffington Post - Off The Bus.

First, the DNC's partial reversal of its previous decision not to seat these delegates is most troubling.  I am not taking the position that the DNC should not have made some provision to ensure the seating of delegates from these two important states.  What I am saying is that it was eminently foreseeable that voters from these states might be more than a little pissed off at not having their votes counted.  I, for one, am wondering why the DNC did not fully explore the possible ramifications of this decision before making it.  If it had done so, the DNC might have avoided this entire situation by deciding to exact a more reasonable penalty.  Instead, here we are.

Second, let's all remember that Hillary had no problem with the fact that the Michigan and Florida delegates were not to be seated at the convention until her "inevitable" campaign strategy imploded somewhere between Iowa and Super Tuesday.  If Hillary cared so much about having these delegates seated, why didn't she lobby these states to move their primaries to an acceptable date?  Just as important, why didn't voters in these states raise more of a stink about this alleged "disenfranchisement" before these primaries took place?  The same goes for the protesters at the DNC event, both outside and inside.  Where were you folks before these primaries?

I absolutely believe in seating these delegates. However, I do NOT believe they should be allocated in a manner that "fairly reflects" the votes cast, as argued by Harold Ickes.  As Senator Carl Levin correctly noted, these are "flawed" primaries -- there is no way that any rational, honest person can believe that those results accurately represent the actual will of the voters.  For example, in the days leading up to these two contests, the media relentlessly characterized them as "completely meaningless." How many busy, hardworking Americans heeded this message and didn't even bother making a trip to the polls?  We will never know, I suppose.

To allow seating these delegates while recognizing the flawed nature of these primaries, a 50/50 division between Obama and Clinton would have been the fairest solution. The fact that the Clinton faction successfully lobbied for an arrangement that allowed her a net gain of twenty-four delegates between these two states is more than fair, and should be more than satisfactory to all reasonable Clinton supporters.  However, as Florida State Rep. Arthenia Joyner succinctly put it, Clinton and her supporters "want it all."  They want their candidate at the top of the ticket by any means possible, be it fair or unfair, right or wrong, divisive or not. 

As Democrats get ready to don their blue jerseys and take the field in the most important election of our generation, here is my final scorecard with respect to Saturday's event.  The very fact that this meeting occurred counts as a loss for the DNC, forced by the Clinton faction into a reversal of its previous mandate and into a decision that Howard Dean acknowledged at the beginning of the day would not be satisfactory to everyone.  Although the goal was to promote party unity, at the end of the day it appears the party is as divided as ever.  Moreover, given the fact that it was the DNC's ill-advised decision that caused this debacle in the first place, the blue team should be wondering whether a coaching change is advisable before they enter the general election arena.

Saturday was also a bad day for Clinton, as it emphasized her worst qualities as a politician.  Although Howard Wolfson claimed victory for Clinton by the mere fact that the meeting took place at all, in the end, Saturday's events are further evidence in support of the widely held opinion that Clinton will say or do anything to secure the nomination.  Senator Clinton is a tremendously talented politician who has run a tough, tenacious campaign and I am hoping that by the end of this week, she will have gracefully exited the race and endorsed Senator Obama so that we can all move forward together.  However, we need to move forward, with Hillary, in a manner that does not turn voters off.  Enough said.

Most importantly, however, Saturday was a loss for everyday voters who desperately want and need change in Washington; it served as another distraction from the real issues facing this country today. 

A wise man once said that the lessons learned from today's loss help one to achieve victory tomorrow.  Let us hope that is the case for the Democratic Party and its members.

Cross-posted at The Huffington Post - Off The Bus.

According to Wikipedia, a zombie is a "reanimated corpse . . . Typically, these creatures can sustain damage far beyond that of a normal, living human . . . "  Like a zombie, Hillary's campaign was dead, but has now apparently been reanimated by her victory in Pennsylvania.  Also like a zombie, she apparently needs none of the things that a non-zombie candidate would require in order to keep her campaign lurching forward, like new donors, or balance sheets that are in the black, or even a reasonable chance to secure victory at the convention in August by above-board means. 

Yeah, she's a zombie, albeit one of the most articulate, well informed and energetic zombies ever to appear on the national stage.  The truth is that lately she's never looked more human.  Hillary does the best zombie-impersonation of a real live candidate that I've ever seen, and voters, especially women and older folks, are really buying her act. 

The folks in the best position to expose Hillary's zombified, undead status are the Republican talking heads, since the GOP has several zombies in their ranks these days, including one big stupid zombie in the White House.  But we also know that these GOP mouthpieces wouldn't be caught dead with a zombie-exposing whistle between their lips.   To the contrary, the Pat Buchanans and Joe Scarboroughs of the world are literally climbing over each other to reassure Democrats in the remaining primary states that she's NOT a zombie, and that she's still got a real shot at this thing, presumably in order to prolong the Democrats' nominating contest as long as "humanly" possible, if you'll pardon the expression.

Let me assure you that this is no laughing matter.  Zombie-Hillary presents two big problems for Obama.  First, all the zombie experts I've spoken to confirm that it takes an extraordinary ass-kicking to put zombies out of commission for good.  You can't just kill them, since they're already dead.  Essentially, you need to dismember a zombie campaign, limb from limb, and scatter the parts to the four winds so that it can't reconstitute itself when you're not looking.  Obama, with his squeaky clean campaign strategies, politics of hope and purported lack of killer instincts, may not be situated to put the necessary smackdown on this unusually tough zombie without compromising his principles and turning off Democrats, who expect better of him.  He can't afford to go negative and risk dividing the party, and his usual shtick doesn't seem to be delivering the much anticipated knockout blow. 

The bigger problem, not addressed anywhere in the leading zombie literature, is as follows.  Given enough external stimuli, is it possible for a zombie to regain enough vitality to overcome its undead status and re-enter the land of the living as a reconstituted flesh and blood candidate?  Exhibit A - John McCain, who was buried in an unmarked grave last summer after his campaign committed suicide with a self-inflicted stake through the heart, and who has since been reanimated to become the presumptive nominee.  It's well documented that the HRC campaign didn't have a strategy beyond Super Tuesday, and for a while Obama administered a real ass-whupping as a result.  However, HRC's halftime adjustments, although long in coming, may finally be turning the tide, and Obama needs to call timeout and reassess his strategy before the next contests in Indiana and North Carolina. 

If I were Obama, in the next week or so I'd focus all my energies on finding a winning strategy, albeit a polite, gentlemanly one, to knock Hillary-zombie out of the race with all possible speed, before she finishes transforming herself from the zombie that we've all grown used to over the last few weeks to Hillary Clinton, flesh and blood candidate.  Otherwise, both Obama and the Democrats may be facing some real trouble in the near future, in the form of an insurmountable party divide. 

This contest is over, people.  Hillary needs something on the order of 65% of all delegates in the remaining contests in order to win the nomination, which, given recent polling numbers, is simply not going to happen.  Meanwhile, she's running out of cash and her supporters stopped drinking the Kool-Aid long ago and are now moving out of the high-crime Clinton shantytown to take up residence in noticeably tidier Obama-ville.  If this were a football game, it would be first and goal for the Obama squad, up by two scores and inside the two minute warning, while HRC would be out of timeouts.  The crowd would be filing out of the stadium en masse to catch the postgame show on their car radios and eat the last cheesesteak before the drive home.  Unless HRC pulls some kind of Tonya Harding takedown on Obama between now and August, she is not going to win the nomination, period.  It's a simple matter of mathematics.

With that in mind, Pennsylvania voters must consider what, not who, they're voting for.  Every vote for Hillary prolongs a contest in which the outcome is no longer in doubt.  While this will not alter the result of the Democratic contest in all possible universes save one, it may hurt our collective chances to get an actual human being, i.e. an organism that appears to have a heart and a soul, into office.  The alternative is John McCain, who, freed from the necessity of campaigning, now hovers ominously in the distance like a dark star.  This is a guy who doesn't seem to like anyone except other rich guys, a guy who will keep us in Iraq for another 100 years despite the fact that he can't keep the players straight over there without help from Joe Lieberman, a guy who thinks there's a 50/50 chance of sending troops into Iran, a guy who called his own wife a "Cee U Next Tuesday" in front of reporters and who thinks Roe v. Wade should be overturned, a guy who voted against an MLK holiday on more than one occasion, and a guy who now favors the Bush tax cuts and who otherwise feels that working class Americans should be left to fend for themselves in hard times without benefit of government assistance and notwithstanding the fact that Washington's irresponsible policies are at least partially responsible for the current state of affairs.  Oh and by the way, the brother can't control his temper either, which is one quality that every commander-in-chief should have, especially one as hawkish as McCain.

There are millions of reasons why we should focus all of our energies on ensuring that McCain never takes office.  Despite this, HRC continues to act like an official GOP decoy, forcing Obama to waste valuable time and resources in extinguishing her desperate to-the-last-woman stand while McCain continues to tiptoe towards the finish line.  If allowed to stay in the race, Hillary's attacks on Obama will only intensify.  She knows that barring a miracle, she's going down, and as an excellent attorney at the Philadelphia Defender's Office once told me, "if one of your clients is about to go down [i.e. be taken into custody], it's a good idea to move away from that person, because there's no telling what they'll do."  HRC's campaign of late exemplifies this analysis -- she's been getting up on the down stroke since losing her aura of "inevitability" and somehow I don't think that George Clinton would approve.  She's lied (Bosnia-gate, Irish peace accords, etc., etc. etc.), attempted to cheat and steal (Michigan and Florida); and otherwise employed every negative tactic in the Clinton playbook.  She knows that the only way she can win is to bring Obama down to her level, and she has missed no opportunity to achieve this end.  The problem is that while HRC has been petulantly flinging her limbs this way and that seeking to strike a blow, she has actually managed to land a couple of punches.  If the national polls are accurate, Obama's not bleeding yet, but his face does have that just-slapped look.  Lord knows what she'll try to engineer between now and August if there's even the shadow of a chance that she can steal the nomination in Denver.

Most telling is the fact that, despite urgent calls for party unity, HRC recently lashed out at "activist" members of her own party for not endorsing her and for flooding the Obama campaign with cash and caucus states with Obama supporters, as reported recently by intrepid blogger Celeste Fremon on Huffington.  This "with us or against us" Rovian mentality is distinctly unDemocratic Party-like and otherwise most disturbing. 

The bottom line is this: if Hillary gave a damn about any of the issues that she supposedly champions, like health care reform for example, she'd bow out gracefully and work with party leadership to ensure that there might at least be a receptive ear in the White House.  Instead, she's shown herself willing to sacrifice all of us on the altar of her personal ambitions.  Why? Because she's not one of us, that's why.  If Democrats lose, she's not the one who'll be out of a job, who'll be hurt by gas prices over $4 a gallon, whose kid will be drafted to shore up our flagging military when we invade Iran during the McCain administration, and who will be turned away from the hospital for not having adequate health insurance.  To be fair, Obama would also not be personally affected by any of these things, but then, Obama's not the one dragging the Democratic Party down, and the hopes of the country with it.  As she watches a dream that she's probably coveted for her entire adult life slip away, I can certainly sympathize with her plight, but there are much larger and more important issues at stake here than her bruised ego.  For the good of the Democratic Party and the nation, she needs to step aside. 

Unfortunately, she can't win, and she can't bear to lose.  Pennsylvania voters can help make that decision for her, and they should.  Hell, even Rocky's fights had to end sometime.  Like Rocky's run in the theater, HRC's run at the Democratic nomination needs to end.

 Cross-posted at The Huffington Post - Off The Bus.

The canary is dead, people.  The fat lady hasn't started singing yet, but she has been spotted in the parking lot of the Pepsi Center in Denver, falling down drunk with a corndog in each hand.

Make no mistake about it, the Dems are once again headed for disaster.  This time, however, the DNC has apparently decided to do itself in, saving the GOP the trouble and expense of having to rely on the ambiguity of hanging chads or a swiftboat-powered coup.

Let's state the obvious first.  The nominating contest has gone on too long, and most Democrats have become too attached to one candidate or the other.  One of these folks has to lose, and the DNC is still trying to figure out how to unite the party after that happens.  A large percentage of potential Dem voters are going to be disappointed either way, but it's obviously better if they're disappointed now, with several months to get over it.  Although Howard Dean has talked about brokering a deal between the candidates to end the contest well before the convention in August, the DNC has otherwise done nothing to reassure Democrats that the situation will be resolved in time to salvage any remaining vestige of party unity.  On the contrary, the DNC, by their conspicuous lack of foresight, has only confused the situation further. 

Case-in-point - the absurdity of the Michigan/Florida situation.  Of course voters are disenfranchised by the DNC's decision to discount these contests!  The obvious point to be made here is that the DNC made the decision to disenfranchise these people months ago, and it was just as wrong then as it is now.  After it became clear that these "meaningless" contests might afford Hillary an advantage, she made it her business to have these delegates seated at the convention.  To compound its first mistake, the DNC then decides to reconsider this issue, claiming that voters are being disenfranchised and that these delegates need to be seated, one way or the other.  Of course, nobody can agree on how this can be done fairly, if it should be done at all, or who should pay for it.  The bottom line is that the DNC should have considered the defensibility of its decision to strike these contests before that decision was made.  

Obviously Florida is an important state in the general election.  More important than its 27 electoral votes, we know from past experience that elections can be won or lost (or even hijacked) there.  Michigan boasts another 17 electoral votes.  Between these two states, the combined 44 electoral votes constitute approximately 16 percent of the 270 votes needed to claim victory in November.  Maybe I'm talking crazy here, but in my estimation Americans don't react well when their votes are deemed irrelevant, another issue that the DNC should have considered before decommissioning these primaries. 

Now the Democrats have a real mess on their hands, and some of the party faithful are eyeing the door.  Like Paul Cejas and Christopher Korge, two wealthy Floridians who want to see the state's delegates seated at the convention.  The NYT reported the other day that Cejas has asked the DNC for $27,500 in contributions back because his vote is not being counted, and that Korge is prepared to ask for the return of $140,000 in donations to the DNC if the Florida delegate situation is not resolved to his satisfaction.  I'm sure Cejas, Korge and other Floridians were thrilled by the announcement by Karen Thurman, head of the Florida Democratic Party, that the mail-in vote option has been cancelled, especially with no viable alternative on the horizon and the fate of the Florida delegates now firmly in the hands of the do-nothing DNC.  Here's a prescient statement issued by Bill Nelson, Dem state senator from Florida, in response to Ms. Thurman's announcement:

"For months I have been pushing for the national Democratic party to count Florida's primary and seat the state's delegates. My fight has been based on the simple premise that in America every citizen has an equal right to vote -- and to have that vote count. One way or another, Florida's voice must be heard in the decision-making process. It's imperative that national party leaders participate in finding a solution. Otherwise Democrats appear headed for a political train wreck that could involve a floor fight at the convention over recognizing Florida's delegates. That runs the risk of alienating a key battleground state in the run-up to the November elections."

If nothing changes between now and then, there are several likely ways that the Democratic National Convention will end in a big, fat mushroom cloud.  A nasty fight over the seating of the Michigan and Florida delegates.  Obama losing the nomination due to superdelegates, Florida, Michigan, some combination of all three, or as the result of some other negative tactic that has yet to be unveiled, this despite entering the building with a lead in the popular vote, delegates and states won.  Hillary losing the nomination despite the fact that she's somehow entitled to the top spot on the ticket now, not eight years from now. 

The fat lady could not be reached for comment, but I'll bet she just got a call from her booking agent, advising her that the August gig in Denver is looking more and more like a sure thing.

Here's a radical thought.  If the Democrats blow this one, the future of the party may well be in jeopardy.  No question that this election is the Democrats' to lose.  The sitting "dead duck" president ("lame duck" just doesn't quite capture his essence, does it?), with his impeachment-caliber approval rating, is responsible for what is arguably the most inept, ineffective, shortsighted administration in the history of this country.  However, regardless of the collateral facts involved, in recent history the Democrats have somehow managed to lose two presidential contests to Dead Duck Dubya.  With all that's at stake in 2008, if the Democrats can't get their act together now, perhaps its time for another team to get in the game, a team that can win the big one.

Cross-posted at The Huffington Post - Off The Bus.

One of my favorite examples is the Confederates at Gettysburg.  The reader will recall that in 1863, the seemingly invincible Army of Northern Virginia invades the North, crossing into Pennsylvania in an effort to bring about a decisive conflict that will end the war.  By sheer accident, the battle is joined when the Confederates, operating blind due to the absence of their cavalry, blunder into their Union counterparts near the small railroad junction of Gettysburg.  After two days of heavy fighting, General Lee, who up until that point in the war had conducted a brilliant campaign with substantially less men and materiel, makes the decisive blunder of the war by sending General Pickett's division across over a mile of open ground, right into the teeth of a Union line that is entrenched on high ground.  The result is a massacre that, along with the surrender of the besieged garrison at Vicksburg, Mississippi a day later to U.S. Grant, breaks the back of the Confederacy. 

Since "Junior Tuesday" did not prove decisive for the Democrats, those who have been following this lengthy nominating contest must be wondering just what it will take to break the Hillary campaign.  Although she must now capture something on the order of 64% of all remaining delegates to win the nomination, she refuses to admit the hopelessness of her cause, petulantly continuing to wage a selfish, unwarranted "scorched earth" campaign that, instead of clearing her way to the nomination, will instead leave the Democratic Party's November aspirations in ashes.   Given her slim chance to overtake Senator Obama in the delegate count, at least by above-board means, she has clearly put her own ambitions ahead of the best interests of the Democratic Party and the country that she aspires to serve as Chief Executive. 

However, Ms. Clinton may have finally dealt her own campaign a potentially fatal blow by in effect endorsing racially charged comments made by campaign fundraiser and former VP candidate Geraldine Ferraro.  Mrs. Ferraro had this to say about Obama's candidacy:

"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."

When confronted with these remarks by the press, Mrs. Ferraro refused to back down, suggesting that she in turn was being discriminated against because she is white. 

Two things are notable here.  The first is that although Mrs. Clinton superficially distanced herself from these remarks with a few empty platitudes, she refused to sever ties with Mrs. Ferarro.  As noted by Newsweek columnist Howard Fineman on Tuesday's (3/11) edition of Countdown, in effect Mrs. Clinton is signaling her tacit approval of these remarks by failing to take more decisive action.  By contrast, the reader will also recall that 1) at a recent debate, Mrs. Clinton insisted that rejecting" Minister Farakhan's support wasn't enough - Mr. Obama must "denounce" it; and 2) Samantha Powers was promptly removed from the Obama campaign after stating that Mrs. Clinton was a "monster." 

The second issue follows from the first.  It is an uncompromising fact that any Democrat seeking election in November must maintain the affections of the African-American voting bloc, which makes up a significant percentage of the traditional Democratic coalition.  By appearing to silently endorse these remarks, Mrs. Clinton may soon find herself in a gray uniform, marching across an open field towards a determined formation of hostile African American voters who occupy the [moral] high ground and who stand poised to annihilate what is left of her campaign.  Obviously the Clinton campaign knows this, but has made the calculated decision to alienate these voters now in return for the benefit of reminding Pennsylvanians who, at least in theory may not feel comfortable voting for an African American candidate, that Obama is in fact black. 

However, because Mrs. Ferraro's comments are so patently offensive to intelligent people of any race, this strategy may backfire, and Mrs. Clinton may look up during her long march across that Pennsylvania battlefield and see a multi-racial coalition of offended voters arrayed on the high ground against her.  Obviously, a big loss in Pennsylvania spells doom for her campaign. 

Time will tell whether this blunder will be Mrs. Clinton's Gettysburg, or whether she'll have the sense to firmly order her troops to about face on that open field before they march within range of enemy gunfire.  If this is to be her Gettysburg, it is only fitting that her campaign, like that of the ill-fated Confederates, will most likely meet its end in Pennsylvania. 

Cross-posted at The Huffington Post - Off The Bus.