Observations on Yesterday's Super-Duper Monster Tuesday

It's kind of a neat little set of bookends. Rotten Rudy G (sounds like a rap artist, doesn't it?) thought he was the front runner, but as the campaign went on and people got to know him, his numbers trailed off to the point where they vanished. He ended up dropping out before Super Tuesday.

Jeez, who could've seen that coming...

Obama is just the opposite. The more people get to know him, the more support he gets. It's not a coincidence that he won big yesterday in the states where he actually showed up in person. As the campaign progresses and more people get to know who he is, the more those numbers will climb.

The media has gone out of its way to call various states as supporting either Obama or Clinton, but given the way that delegates are proportionally allocated based on the relative percentages of the votes -- as opposed to the Rethug "winner take all" rules -- it's pretty much a meaningless distinction. It doesn't matter who won a given state, but who won the most delegates. That's what Nevada proved: Clinton won "the state", but Obama won more delegates.

Right now Obama and Hillary C (another rap artist?) are in a virtual dead heat in committed delegates, with a number of votes left to count, but those so-called "Super Delegates" are still problematical. Mostly they are party insiders whom the Clintons have been cultivating for years. They are under no obligation to support anyone, but one could profitably wager that they will come down solidly in the Clinton camp.

If Hillary gets the nomination at the convention based solely on the Super Delegate count, or solely on the seating of the controversial Michigan and Florida delegations, then I foresee the Democratic party entering another self-destruct mode (which BTW we are really good at) that will make the 1968 convention look like a Sunday school picnic.