Election Update

Today is the last primary day. Whew! Montana and South Dakota weigh in today, and that's the last word. There's a lot of talk about what Hillary's going to do after the day is over, but we'll get to that in a moment.

First, the Puerto Rico primary was held a few days ago, and Hillary destroyed Obama by about 36 points. She is now claiming the popular vote and calling on superdelegates to follow that criteria when making their decision. Another key component for her is the Florida and Michigan delegates. The DNC decided that both states should have their delegates seated, but with only half a vote per delegate. This gives Hillary a slight boost, but not enough to take the lead.

Despite these new happenings, the Democrat party is still pressuring Hillary to drop out.

Both candidates have big parties scheduled for tonight, so it's unclear what they're going to do - is Obama going to claim victory tonight? Will Clinton concede? There's a ton of speculation about these kinds of questions, and only time will tell. Bill Clinton said yesterday that this would be the last day he would be a part of a campaign like this. There are discussions about Clinton's finances and how she can pay back her campaign debts. A couple potential death blows to Clinton's campaign include a bunch of big Clinton donors who are looking at supporting Obama and the fact that Senate superdelegates met yesterday to discuss who they were going to support, and it sounds like they'll back Obama.

There is also a lot of speculation about the VP position - will Clinton take it? Will Obama offer it to her? Obama made some statements about how he and Clinton would be 'working together' in the fall, but Michelle Obama has previously made some rather strenuous objections to that in the past. Still, if the gamblers are any indication, the money is riding on an Obama/Clinton ticket (they're also predicting Romney for McCain's VP). Even so, there are other ideas being thrown around. One interesting theory I read was that Hillary should pull out and run as an Independent.

So, today should be very enlightening on what both of the Dem candidates plan to do with their campaigns.

In other election news, there is a question of what Barack Obama's departure from Trinity will do. Will it cause some relief to his campaign? Stanley Kurtz agrees with what I mentioned yesterday: probably not. The basic idea is that his actions don't really reflect his true beliefs, but rather a need for political necessity. As such, Obama is damned if he does leave, and damned if he doesn't. McCain should still be able to use this in the general election, so the issue isn't over.

An interesting detail that I thought I'd pass along - Obama's success can be attributed to a superior primary strategy. Clinton thought she'd have the nomination wrapped up by Super Tuesday, but Obama's team mastered the Democrat method of awarding delegates and slowly built up his momentum by winning big and losing small.

Some furious Democrats are planning riots in Denver if the convention doesn't go the way they want. The ACLU has filed suit to find out what tactics the police are planning to use to quell the afore-mentioned riots, but the city has said get lost. Yep, these morons who are promising riots to get their way actually expect the Denver police to disclose their planned responses to the riots. How's that for idiocy? Right Truth wonders whether there is enough jail space available in Denver to handle them all and takes a fun look at some of the riot gear Denver authorities may want to use.

So, today should be a big day in the primary process. We may actually get some resolution today...maybe. Stay tuned and I'll keep you up to date.

There's my two cents.