The long national nightmare continues

The news about Eliot Spitzer's dealings with prostitutes which broke yesterday could not have made Mrs. Bill Clinton happy. Spitzer is one of her biggest supporters among the nation's governors and is a superdelegate pledged to vote for her at the Democrat convention.

Now it seems that Mrs. Clinton is about to receive more bad news, this time from The Wall St. Journal:

A little-noticed shift in the tally of California’s Democratic delegates may affect the primary between Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton as much as the heavily hyped results last Tuesday in Ohio, Texas, Vermont and Rhode Island.

Sen. Clinton won primaries in Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island, while Sen. Obama won the Vermont primary and appears likely to win the Texas caucus. For the day, Sen. Clinton is likely to trim fewer than 10 delegates from Sen. Obama’s lead in the race for the Democratic nomination, which by most counts stands at about 100 delegates.

But Sen. Obama may make up all that lost ground in the media counts that are the closest this race has to an official scoreboard. A California politics blogger has argued that Sen. Clinton won 36 more pledged delegates in the state than Sen. Obama, rather than the 44-delegate margin that has long been included in the news organizations’ tallies. A spokesman for the state party confirms the blogger’s numbers.

The shift, if validated once the state certifies its election results this week and the party chooses its delegates, is a reminder that the commonly reported delegate totals are mere estimates, subject to change as states finalize election results. It also highlights how a blogger with intense focus on the numbers may be faster than the established delegate counters.

Mrs. Clinton is attempting to frame herself as the person who has already received the nomination. How else to explain her hints that she would accept Obama as her VP. As one observer noted this has to be the first time the person in second place offered the person in first place the number two spot.

In the past the media would have eagerly gone along with the game, but this time she is attempting to sandbag their anointed candidate so they are not playing. In fact the MSM is beginning to treat the Clintons as though they were the Republicans in a Republican/Democrat race.

Every time B. Hussein wins a primary or caucus or even when a Hillary win fails to shave more than one or two delegates off of Obama's lead it gets harder and harder for Hillary to sell herself to even her own kool-aid drinkers as the inevitable nominee.

My advice to Obama, if he is reading this, would be to turn the tables on Hillary and announce that there could very well be a place for Hillary in an Obama administration, but not as vice president. He should say that what experience she actually does have would make her a good fit as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development or Secretary of Education. He then should challenge her to accept the will of the majority of Democrat voters and withdraw from the race so that the party can begin to run its national campaign. He should close by pointing out that every day she stays in the race is the equivalent of a contribution to the McCain campaign.

Of course Hussein will not do any of that. Instead he will continue to do what has worked for him in the past. Use his magnificent oratory skills to work crowds into states of ecstatic frenzy and hope that the "Obama phenomena" has long enough legs to carry him through November.

I have seriously begun to doubt that this can happen. I think that Obama peaked too soon and his loss of momentum in Ohio and Texas and his probable upcoming loss in Pennsylvania is due to the fact that Democrat voters have finally taken a look at him and realized that he is almost completely empty. Democrats have taken the decision that even an unlikable Hillary who actually seems to have substance is superior to a hot air balloon that looks very pretty but can't carry much weight aloft.

In other words Obama is the Howard Dean of 2008.

I strongly suspect that by the time the convention rolls around Democrat power brokers will have figured out a way to hand the nomination to Hillary with Barack on the ticket as VP. It will neither matter if Mrs. Clinton wants him there nor if Hussein wants to be there. It will be a done deal. The advantage to Mrs. Clinton will be that she gets to head the "dream ticket" of first woman/first black which unites the party and draws in all the moderates and independents (negating McCain's one single legitimate advantage). The deal benefits Obama because he is a young enough man that he will come out of eight years as VP still young in presidential terms. But he will have eight years as the nominal number two man in the executive branch. It will no longer be possible to say that his only experience is a couple of years in the Senate.

Of course this is all speculation from a pissed-off conservative so you can take it with as many shakers full of salt as you wish.