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about fucking time:

you had me worried for a while there, johnny.

meanwhile, in the parallel universe inhabited by the clinton campaign…

NEW YORK (AP) — Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton vowed to remain in the presidential race until the final primaries next month while her campaign built a case that she now leads in the popular vote if the disputed contests in Michigan and Florida are counted.
…
“You don’t walk off the court before the buzzer sounds,” Clinton said on CNN. “You never know, you might get a three-point shot at the end.”

you’ve got to admire the consistency of the clinton playbook. some overpaid consultant decided some time last year that hillary’s biggest obstacle to the nomination was not her high disapproval, her war vote, or her abrasive personality, but her gender. the only way americans will vote for a woman, someone decided, is if she’s swinging the biggest, hairiest pair of cast-iron cojones this side of vin diesel. and so, ladies and gentlemen, meet the whiskey-swigging, hardhat-wearing, iran-nuking, sports-metaphorizing mister hillary clinton — not just the first woman president, but the manliest since teddy roosevelt.

almost a year later, and god bless ‘em, they’re sticking with it. obama’s lead is — let’s just get used to saying it — insurmountable. clinton, displaying a truly bushlike, balls-over-brains contempt for mathematical reality itself, not only vows to stay the course, but manages to posit the situation as a basketball analogy. yet, not unlike john kerry hunting pheasants, there’s something unconvincing about hillary’s emulation of blue collar machismo. in this case, it’s a fundamental misunderstanding of the rules of basketball.

i’m not a sports guy, but i’ve watched enough basketball to know that the proverbial 3-pointer-at-the-buzzer is only decisive when the game is extremely close — like, within 3 points. as of this morning’s count, clinton needs 308 delegates to clinch the nomination, while obama only needs 137. there are only 189 pledged delegates still up for grabs in the remaining primaries. even if clinton were to win every single one of those delegates, she’d still be 119 short. in other words, she needs at least 72% of all remaining uncommitted delegates, pledged and super-. she doesn’t need a three-pointer, she needs several dozen of them, in the court-time equivalent of about thirty seconds.

it takes a latter-day iron balls mcginty to demand, as hillary is, that superdelegates should withhold their endorsements until after the last primary, when there’s no possible way its outcome could tilt the balance. i’d really like to think that she’s just stalling for a face-saving opportunity to bow out, but every time i want to give her credit for having a little class i’m disappointed. remember the texas debate, when clinton was “absolutely honored” to be sharing a podium with barack? and then, not 48 hours later in ohio, shouting “shame on you!” at the top of her lungs? by now i’m inclined to believe her when she says she means to stick it out to the bitter, bitter end.

we’re well past the point where there’s anything intelligent left to say about the clinton campaign, so i’ll just close out this post by free-associating some of the words that come to mind: pyrrhic. delusional. egomaniacal. quixotic. scorched-earth. sabotage. suicide pact. Greek tragedy.

and so on, it seems, ’til august…

enough of this crap.

howard dean is right: we have to get on with it and nominate a candidate already. neither clinton nor obama can reach the magic number of pledged delegates before the convention, and nobody benefits from more of what we saw wednesday night except the GOP. superdelegates, it’s time to pick your pony.

i’m writing letters to the uncommitted democratic supers from my state urging them to grow a pair and help bring an end to this absurdity. find yours here. feel free to use my letter as a template:

Dear [hesitant super]:

As you know, DNC Chair Howard Dean has asked Democratic superdelegates to publicly commit to a candidate as soon as possible. I share his concern that the drawn-out nomination fight we are witnessing, with its increasingly negative tone and focus on increasingly trivial, non-substantive issues, is damaging the party’s prospects in November, to the benefit of neither candidate – nor, still less, that of the American people. With each day of ugly and pointless infighting it becomes clearer that to continue in this vein can only help John McCain.

As an Iowa Democrat, I am writing to urge you to act immediately on Chairman Dean’s request and make your choice of candidate known without further delay. Under the circumstances, I can see no valid reason why automatic delegates representing states that have already voted should continue to withhold their endorsements.

As a Barack Obama supporter, I would naturally welcome your endorsement of my candidate – especially since, as you are well aware, Senator Obama carried the Iowa Caucuses by a decisive margin. More than anything else, though, I am anxious to see a swift resolution to the nomination contest, regardless of which candidate is chosen, so that we may move on to focus on the far more important goal of ending Republican control of the executive branch.

Thank you for your attention to this important matter. I look forward to your prompt endorsement of either candidate.

this has gone on far too long — i can’t wait until august. at this point, my desire to see an end to this inane nomination fight has all but surpassed my desire to see barack obama on the ticket. if he’s the nominee, i’ll volunteer for his campaign, donate money, pimp him insufferably to everybody i know, whatever. if it’s hillary, i’ll hold my nose and vote (seriously — any nominal progressive who threatens to vote mccain if their guy/gal loses deserves nothing but ridicule). but it might not matter either way if this shit isn’t resolved soon.