The Writer's Poke

Your moment of zen for today: An Obama victory unifies the Democratic party (and I would argue, the nation). A Hillary victory unifies the Republican party. Enough said.

Hillary's rhetoric is smooth. And, I fear if she says things often enough, most people will start to believe her. She says that she's qualified to be president "day one" and Obama isn't. Look at the facts: Hillary has been elected just twice in her life. She's only been in office 8 years. Obama has been elected to public office four times, with 10 years of total public office experience. Yes, 6 of the 10 years were in the Illinois State Senate, but Illinois is no small state. So, Hillary, where are the other 27 years of experience you claim? I understand that being first lady counts for something, but it's not an elected office. I'm 34 years old, and I've been in school since I was 2, if I include pre-school. Does that mean I can claim 32 years experience in education? And what if Chelsea decided to run for office? Could she likewise claim 28 years experience (she was born in 1980)? By the way, Obama is 46 years old, and he's not exactly wet be...

In chess, white has the advantage. Going into last night, Hillary had the advantage with big leads in New York and California. And when I went to bed last night, Hillary was kicking butt in California -- up 20 points over Obama. But I was happy to see that this lead dropped to 10 points by morning (52 to 42). And while Hillary won the two big states, Obama won just about everything in middle of the country, other than Tennessee. So in the end, last night was a draw. Obama should be able to win the next few primaries. All I'm worried about is Texas. Why he cannot connect well with Latino voters is a mystery to me. Getting a draw from a superior player is in itself a victory. There's no doubt that Hillary is a grandmaster politician, and I would therefore call last night's showing for Obama a victory.

This could be a long night. I'm worried. Obama is my guy, but I have a feeling that Hillary is going to do better tonight. And, I'm not usually wrong about these kind of predictions. The good news is, when I drove to work this morning, there were only two Hillary supporters on the overpass trying to get people to honk for Hillary. Just two. That's rather pathetic. Heck, even when Ron Paul had supporters on that same overpass earlier in the year, there were always at least a dozen of them. Perhaps that means Hillary's support isn't that strong, at least in Minnesota. Keep your fingers crossed. I don't understand why in a country of 300 million people, the only people that we can elect to the office of President are named either Bush or Clinton. We need some new blood!