It is my intention to be as fair as possible when writing about the elections. I will try to call out anyone who appears to be immersing their constituency in the bowels of fiction instead of embracing the truth. But recently I’ve realized that most of my posts have been critical of Democrats.

I don’t mean to say that the Republican candidate has no flaws, but as he is racking up endorsements and funds, the Democratic duo are locked in a contest of exposition, each trying to out-politique the other. And so the gloves have come off on the Democratic side, while John McCain is waiting in the wings to pounce when finally either Senator Obama or Senator Clinton bows out.

This wait-and-strike policy is applicable in many different situations, but the easiest way for me to explain it is using video games as an example, specifically first person shooters. Great, you’re thinking, this eclectic fusion of video games and politics is just too nonsensical. Normally I would agree, but this is the simplest way to explain McCain’s current strategy.

Your computer-generated character is sneaking down a long, grainy corridor. You stop at a T junction at the end of the hall and peer around the left corner. Five aliens are waiting, guns drawn. Peeking around the right corner, you see five other aliens. You weigh your options. You could try to use the corner for cover and pick them off as best as you can; or you can charge, guns blazing, hoping to take down all ten extra terrestrials before they can get you. Neither option is promising. But wait, out of nowhere, the two droves of aliens begin shooting at each other, still unaware of your presence. Suddenly your choice is clear: wait until they are done fighting before you attack. At worst, you will only have five aliens to deal with, but that’s assuming one side comes out totally unscathed. More likely, you will only have to clear one or two, because even the winning side of the first fight will have sustained significant damage against an evenly matched opponent. You have now gone from having to face ten aliens to having to face two, without even firing a shot — an amazingly efficient use of your resources — and meanwhile, you have remained safe from the crossfire.

Right now, John McCain is crouching in that T junction, waiting smugly as his two opponents verbally, politically, and rhetorically destroy each other. Either Obama or Clinton will eventually win, but by that point, they will be terribly weakened, not in the sense of having lost strength per say, but in the sense that they have expended resources, and more importantly, used up their relatively untainted political clout. Whoever ends up battling McCain will have quite a bit of baggage by the relative finality of the Democratic Convention.

I use this example to highlight McCain’s strategy, as well as to explain my heavy critique of the Democrats. I have called both Clinton and Obama out on some of their empty promises simply because they are vocalizing them loudly. In every debate, rally, or primary night victory speech, we hear the same things. McCain, however, has been unusually silent. Aside from the lack of Republican debates, McCain no longer has any viable opponent by a long shot for the Republican nomination, so the victory speeches are not as energizing or exciting or, sometimes, existent. It’s not that McCain has stopped campaigning; it’s that he is doing so more carefully simply because he can afford to do so.

In addition, we have the media to partially blame for this, myself included, as I have also been writing quite a bit more about Democrats lately. And so we see an emerging vicious cycle: the more exciting a race is, the more coverage it gets, the more scrutiny it gets, the more exciting it becomes. Right now, the media and news outlets are McCain’s biggest inadvertent ally in the fight against the Democrats. They are allowing him to stay out of the crossfire and remain safely tucked away, waiting to strike when the moment is right.

Yesterday I checked, just for good measure, the CNN political ticker page. Amazingly, Obama and Clinton are each mentioned 62 times on the front ticker page. That looks like pretty balanced reporting to me, until you consider that McCain is mentioned only seven times. Seven. He is almost entirely under the radar, and enjoying every minute of it.

And so, with this intrinsic bias in mind, I want to use this post to call the senator from Arizona out on a few things that could provide the Democratic nominee with footholds up the side of Mount McCain.

One of the most obvious mistakes, and I use the term “obvious” relatively given what we’ve said so far, is that McCain has continued speaking in abstractions when laying out his potential policies. This is a criticism that I have more often levelled at Senator Obama, but to be fair, Obama’s plans (while more self-contradictory at parts and not very inclusive and assimilating of other ideas, despite the promise of uniting the county) are much more well articulated in details and specifics. And Clinton has accused Obama of offering only words and no substantive hope. No matter who the Democratic nominee is, McCain needs to beef up his policies with actual plans, or his experience and political know-how will be overrun by the details, flawed though they may be, offered by the Democratic candidate.

On international trade, the McCain campaign says that “the U.S. should engage in multilateral, regional and bilateral efforts to reduce barriers to trade, level the global playing field and build effective enforcement of global trading rules.” I think almost all Republicans would agree with this. I think most Democrats would agree as well. I agree with it. Most sensible people I know would agree with it.

And that’s the problem. McCain maintains the illusion of bipartisanship by using abstract statements that are pretty much invulnerable. But they don’t provide any real solutions. If McCain could provide a specific policy to enact with China, a plan to keep jobs in America while still at the same time allowing for the adherence to the principles of free trade with countries who are economically stable enough, or even just an outline of the specific trade plans he will explore while in office, I would feel much more comfortable.

McCain’s health care plan is quite a bit more detailed, but then it would have to be, what with Obama and Clinton reciting their entire plans during each Democratic debate. However, again, there seem to be a lot of good ideas without any set means of achieving them. McCain talks about lifting the restrictions that insurance companies have imposed on who may treat patients and lifting the restrictions the government has imposed on who may insure patients. If we’re to keep health care privatized, then this sounds like a good means of opening the market while at the same time making quality health care more accessible. But how does he plan to get there? Will he, John McCain, personally take on the insurance companies and all their lobbyists? Probably not, at least not successfully.

On the environment and energy policy, McCain again makes sense, but not enough sense. We can actually use one of Hillary Clinton’s phrases (aimed at Obama with regard to health care) and apply it to McCain here. If you don’t start out with a specific plan in mind and a realistic way of getting there, then you “will be nibbled to death,” by lobbyists and partisan legislators. I feel almost conciliatory in saying it, but in this case, Clinton is absolutely correct.

But John McCain has been around Washington long enough to know the political realities of the system better even than Clinton. So why would he be so unspecific as to how he plans to achieve his goals? It is possible that this has something to do with diverting the limelight elsewhere. In order to remain under the radar, he can’t make any controversial statements. Not yet, at least. We’ll see whether McCain finally gets down to details when he joins in the political firefight.

While some of McCain’s ideas are a little vague, others just don’t make sense. His immigration policy, at least as outlined on his campaign’s website, is merely a laundry list of considerations. When I read it, I felt as if I was looking through an incomplete guide on how to formulate one’s own immigration policy. It does not give any feasible way of dealing with the current problem. It doesn’t even acknowledge that there are any illegal immigrants (let alone millions) already inside this country.

His immigration plan is 386 words long. My college entrance essays were longer than that, and I was only trying to get into a school. John McCain is trying to get into the oval office. Not only that, but the plan begins with a hook meant to draw in the reader. “Immigration is one of those challenging issues that touch on many aspects of American life.” Oh, no. One of those. Allow me to snap my fingers, tilt my head, sigh, and express my mild frustration.

McCain says, “If we have learned anything from the recent immigration debate, it is that Americans have little trust that their government will honor a pledge to do the things necessary to make the border secure.” First of all, I hope we’ve learned more than one thing from this debate. Second, if we have learned only one thing, I would hope that it would be a more substantive lesson than that. But, please, no one panic, because John McCain follows up this statement with, “As president, I will secure the border.” Oh good. I was befuddled for a moment by your vagueness, but now I see that everything will be fine.

Sarcasm aside, there isn’t even a link for education under the list of issues on the McCain website. I can tell you that his support of “No Child Left Behind” carries with it the condition of minor revisions. We can guess, probably fairly accurately, at what these revisions would be, but as someone trying to earn our trust and support in winning the presidency, wouldn’t McCain be better off just coming out and telling us?

The problem with waiting until the aliens massacre each other, which is not really accounted for in video games, is twofold. First, the remaining aliens will likely be the strongest simply because they were the ones to survive the initial battle. Second, the remaining aliens will be battle-hardened, and if they are savvy enough to find your weaknesses, then they will know exactly how to exploit them. Obama and Clinton have put behind them quite a bit of “live ammo” training and actual political combat with one another. They and their respective campaigns have developed a more intuitive political sense. Meanwhile, McCain has been at the shooting range, honing his skills. But he has never had to put up a political fight quite like his now impending challenge, and whoever the Democratic nominee is will make Mitt Romney look like easy pickings.

No matter where you live in the United States, if you are a Democrat you probably feel more important this election than you have in quite a while. Even Puerto Rico, with its 55 delegates, could be — dare I say? — vital in determining the outcome of the Democratic race.

Tonight, we will hear from Mississippi, a state that has historically been lost in the all too deterministic post-Super Tuesday shuffle. But this time, their pronouncement will carry immense weight.

Because of the delicate balance between Obama and Clinton, who both seem to be teetering on having an upper hand, Mississippi’s small voting population could tip the balance just enough to give one candidate the “momentum” heading into the long and violent stretch toward Pennsylvania on April 22.

A quick look at the current Mississippi polls, as well as the voting demographic and relevant issues, shows that Barack Obama will most likely walk away with the state with no real contention. And so, it appears that Obama will pull out the fifth switcheroo of the race thus far (the first being his upset in Iowa, the second Clinton’s reclamation of front-runner status in New Hampshire and into Super Tuesday, the third Obama’s surge and 12 straight victories, the fourth Clinton’s victory in Texas and solid lead in Ohio).

But it is worth noting, even if Obama gets a boost tonight, Pennsylvania will be a huge uphill battle for him. Clinton is standing at the top of the hill throwing rocks down on his grass roots minions who valiantly, though ineffectively, charge upward in massive numbers. We’re left wondering: even if Obama gains back a bit of momentum, how much can Mississippi actually help him? This in turn, leads to a broader question: no matter what Obama does now, is there any saving grace for him on the horizon?

It’s true, he has run an incredible campaign, and he has undermined Clinton’s air of inevitability in a way that, one year ago, no one would have been able to imagine. But by running on victories from caucuses and red states to aim himself at the larger challenges, he has shown us that, at one point, he will run out of fuel. Mississippi is, indeed, the last little bit in his tank. He will win, and the victory will help him somewhat. But Pennsylvania is solidly Clinton territory, as she retains an almost 12 point lead there.

After Pennsylvania, there will be other little bits of fuel that trickle in for Obama, like North Carolina, probably Kentucky and Montana, etc. But with the looming question of Michigan and Florida, it’s doubtful that he will mount a surge in a potential revote in either of the two states.

However, Florida and Michigan may, in fact, present him with an opportunity. If we were to count the original two contests, then Clinton would only be ahead in popular vote by 20,000, and Obama wasn’t even on the Michigan ballot. So even this obstacle might be surmountable.

Still, the point is that Obama will get no more breaks. Every delegate that he earns will have to be fought for. Clinton has dug in and recently has even resorted to tactics like spreading rumors of a Clinton/Obama ticket. That way, people could vote for Clinton and still not feel as though they were abandoning the message of hope presented by Obama. Obama has made it clear that he is “not running for vice president.” This is just an example of the obstacles now before the Obama campaign.

It looks like we’re back to the nitty-gritty, down to the wire politics again. If Obama can be within eight points of Clinton in Pennsylvania and remain unscathed until North Carolina, then he still stands a good shot. Obama is an inspirer, an orator, an energizer. But, realisitically, he has more convincing and less energizing to do if he wants to hold out that long. He has to start using his remaining fuel wisely, instead of holding the accelerator down in that exciting way he does so often.

If there is one thing Howard Dean is not, it is careful. His lack of meticulousness seems to have infected the ranks of the Democratic National Committee, and the latest debacle with Florida and Michigan marks the boiling point of the hot water in which Democrats have been sitting.

As I have said for a while now, totally disenfranchising voters in Florida and Michigan was not, under any circumstances, an appropriate response to the states’ unauthorized rescheduling of their primary elections. The Republicans offered a similarly single-minded approach, by cutting the delegate count of the rogue states in half, but the difference between the two parties is this: the Republicans made sure that the issue would not come back to haunt them, while the Democrats’ epimetheal reaction will most certainly come full circle and end in utmost regret.

First, there is the issue of principle. Preventing registered voters from having any say in whom their party’s nominee will be, simply because the legislature of the state in which those voters reside broke an agreement, is comparable to sentencing an entire family to imprisonment because one parent stole bread to feed them. Who broke the agreement anyway? Certainly not the millions of Floridians and Michiganders. They simply showed up to vote when and where they were instructed. But that didn’t stop Howard Dean and his followers in the party from punishing them all.

Now the quagmire is complete, and everyone whose title is followed by a (D) will be hurt by it. Along the lines of principle, the Democrats have shown that the value they place on the democratic process is not above the value that they place on rules that will allow the party to conduct their contests in a self-beneficial way.

But since the elections have proceded and the candidates have established themselves in the national spotlight, the issue pertaining to Florida and Michigan is no longer viewed as simply a matter of principle. It is now virtually impossible to separate the three remaining options to the Democratic party from the obvious benefactors of each potential decision. And so for the party to act in one way would be seen as benefitting Clinton, while to act in another would be seen as benefitting Obama.

This is precisely why the first two options are not feasible (aside from the principle blunders), and the third one must be followed. They are as follows.

Option 1: Stick to the punishment that the Democratic party initially decided upon and grant the states no delegates at the Convention.
Pros: Enforcement of original decision will make an example of the two states who decided to go against the rules, and the Democratic party will retain its credibility.
Cons: The disenfranchisement of millions of Democratic voters will not go over well, in principle or in practice. Michigan and Florida are both swing states in the general election, and telling Democrats in those states that their votes don’t matter is bad business if the party wants to put a Democrat in the White House.
Favors: Obama

Option 2: Seat the current delegations as they stand from the original primary elections.
Pros: The voters in Florida and Michigan count for something.
Cons: The Democratic party loses credibility and the results are based on ballots that, in Michigan, did not even include Obama. “Uncommitted” votes then would be fuzzy in delegate translation, as “uncommitted” was, for our purposes, a vote against Clinton — not necessarily a vote for either Obama or Edwards, or even Kucinich or Gravel. Therefore, the Clinton delegation would be clear, but not the delegation for the other candidates.
Favors: Clinton

Option 3: Hold a revote in the two states, allow voters to choose a candidate, and appropriate the delegates accordingly.
Pros: The voters in Florida and Michigan are counted, and the contests are held in a manner that presents both candidates fairly, with both names on the ballot.
Cons: The Democratic party loses some credibility for not following through with their ridiculous punishment, but retains some for making sure the elections are done within the rules. Holding a second set of elections will also cost a very large sum of money, something on the order of $20 million per state ($4-8 million for a caucus, or up to $25 million for a full-fledged primary).
Favors: Clinton slightly, at least in contrast to the way things currently stand, but no candidate will be treated unfairly in this process.

As I said, the only viable option is the third one, which leaves two problems. The first is the partial loss of credibility of the Democratic party in abandoning their original (albeit totally irrational) course of action. The party will have to deal with this in whatever way possible as the responsibility for the lack of foresight is entirely upon them.

The second problem, however, is a bit trickier. A second round of primary elections, even caucuses, would cost an enormous amount of money. Deciding who should pay for it, when both the involved states and the party can be blamed for bringing about this problem, is not so clear cut. As a revote is emerging as the only viable possibility, the fingerpointing has escalated to determine just who should fund such a project.

Florida Governor Charlie Crist, a Republican and supporter of John McCain, believes that the delegates, at least in Florida, should be seated as they are, but that if there is to be another contest, that the DNC should foot the bill. Clearly, a this would help Republicans. If the delegates are seated, then Clinton gets a boost, prolonging the battle between her and Obama. And if she wins the nomination, many Republicans feel she would be a weaker opponent to have to deal with than Obama.

If the DNC pays for a second contest, then they will be millions in the hole for backing a presidential candidate. Dean said, “We can’t afford to do that. That’s not our problem. We need our money to win the presidential race.”

Another problem with a revote is that, even though it is the most fair option left, there may not be enough support within the DNC itself for this course of action, as the party members who are loyal to a particular candidate have fallen behind the plan that would favor him or her.

I don’t want to sound unfair in my critique of the DNC. It is true that the states erred and should be held to the rules to which they agreed. Dean remarked, “Everybody has to play by the rules out of respect for both campaigns and the other 48 states.” If he had stopped here and demanded that Florida and Michigan rectify the problem, then he would have had principle on his side. But as soon as the DNC silenced the voters in the two states, the principle took a neutral stance, and now can be claimed by neither side.

The only winner in all of this is John McCain. He will be the nominee of the party who can point to a simple response that neither disenfranchised voters nor left the deed unpunished. And this mere forethought on the part of Republicans will go a long way in aiding their electoral image. Protecting the Democratic process needs to be the main goal in solving this problem. Then, party considerations may follow. Unfortunately, that means that the DNC may have to bite the bullet. Whatever happens now, we can be sure that Howard Dean’s successors will never let a disaster like this happen again.

The Democratic debate in Cleveland had a clear winner: Tim Russert.

Other than that, it was more of the same old, with the exception of a few notable moments that showed up like dust on the photocopier bed.

Clinton said, “This is too important,” again in order to continue to talk about health care when both Tim Russert and Brian Williams wanted to move to another subject. She and Obama argued about which plan was favored by most independent experts, each claiming his or her own plan to be superior. But really, if we are to look at what independent experts say, it becomes clear that they favor neither plan, as both are remarkably similar. What’s more, neither, according to said experts, is financially realistic, and neither will cut costs nearly as much as the candidates want us to believe. Phew. That’s like a can of raid on this cockroach of a topic.

Anyway, as per my previous suggestion, Obama was finally on Clinton’s left hand side, so each could write without worrying about accidentally making a political statement.

The buzzword changed, too. It wasn’t “change,” this time, but “accurate” (or derivations thereof such as “inaccurate”). Clinton said it thrice in the beginning. Obama said it eleven times after that. It appears we’ve actually honed in on substance rather than abstractions like “hope” and “change.” You can’t be called out for your accuracy with regard to hope. Keep in mind, each time a candidate says the other’s statement is inaccurate, it’s the equivalent to calling the other candidate a liar or an uninformed buffoon.

Obama has become strikingly good at trying to interrupt Clinton, and then pretending to be interrupted himself when she keeps talking.

Tim Russert, sly devil, asked the candidates whether they would leave Iraq immediately if the Iraqi government told the United States to simply get out. Both Clinton and Obama, recognizing the sovereignty of Iraq, said that they would have to do so in such a scenario. But when asked whether the U.S. should re-enter Iraq should al Qaeda establish a stronghold there upon our exit, Clinton said, “You know, Tim, you ask a lot of hypotheticals.”

Point of interest: Clinton is not yet the president. Ergo, any statement about a Hillary Clinton presidency is, by its very nature, a hypothetical. Each time Clinton spoke about something that would happen while she is president, she spoke in hypotheticals. I honestly didn’t keep count, but she probably used hypotheticals a couple hundred times during the debate.

But beyond that, when Russert said, “But this is reality,” Clinton reponded with, “No — well, it isn’t reality.” Aside from the political convenience that such a statement offers by allowing her to dodge the actual question, Clinton inadvertently disgraced the thousands of U.S. soldiers who have fought and died in Iraq. If there is no al Qaeda threat in Iraq (regardless of whether or not that threat has been perpetuated by an American presence), then what have they been dying for? Hypotheticals, according to Clinton. Here, Clinton is wrong. The threat is real, regardless of the policy we pursue to deal with it.

Surprisingly, Obama provided the right answer, although he disguised it in strings of political rhetoric. He said that he would indeed go back into Iraq should the need arise. But again, you could hardly tell what he was saying as his statement was dripping in phrases from the job description of commander in chief.

The correct answer, with no strings attached and no fluff statements to act as political buffers is as follows. “Yes, if al Qaeda strongly established themselves in Iraq after an American withdrawal, then the U.S. would have to reenter Iraq, as we have seen that it is neither in our interests nor the world’s interests to have an historically violent and irrational terrorist organization hold power in a country over an authoritatively weakened government.” Period. End of story.

Tim Russert: 1. Clinton and Obama: 0.

Clinton also has to get better at making analogies. She said that not making a health care plan manadatory for everyone would be “as though Franklin Roosevelt said let’s make Social Security voluntary.” Of course, because Social Security carries the benchmark of an effective use of spending, a system that will aid, at best, three generations of Americans before totally bankrupting the country. It’s like taking out a several billion dollar loan from your great grandchildren.

Not that Social Security wasn’t a good idea, it just didn’t work ideally — because things never work ideally. Perhaps if Social Security had had more restrictions at its inception, it wouldn’t spell financial doom for my generation. But this analogy with health care is merely indicative of Clinton’s assertions that government can fix everything at whatever cost. Ideally, yes. But as we said, things never work ideally. We don’t live in an ideal world.

Along the NAFTA lines, Clinton said that she would pull out of NAFTA if it were not restructured. Obama said he would use the threat of pulling out to get Canada and Mexico to agree to restructuring the agreement, thereby exposing his and Clinton’s cards. If Stephen Harper was watching the debate, he probably fell over laughing. Rest assured, if Obama is the nominee, McCain will call him out on showing too much of his hand, just as McCain called Obama out on his statement that he would attack an al Qaeda target in Pakistan. McCain then said, “The best idea is not to broadcast what you’re going to do, that’s naive.”

Tim Russert also cornered Clinton in her pledge to create jobs. In 2000 in Buffalo, while running for the U.S. Senate, Clinton said that there would be 200,000 new jobs in upstate New York. Russert pointed out that there had been a net loss of 30,000 jobs since then. He pointed out that Clinton later said, “I might have been a little exuberant.” He then asked Clinton, “Tonight will you say that the pledge of five million jobs might be a little exuberant?” Clinton’s response is loaded with revealing material.

Let’s start with her first point. “No, Tim, because what happened in 2000 is that I thought Al Gore was going to be president.” So we can take off of Clinton’s resume the bullet point about being exceptional at predicting the outcome of political contests. This kind of undermines her credibility when she says on the campaign trail that she will be the next President of the United States. According to her predictions, Gore was the next president eight years ago.

But what’s more is that it underscores a habit of making promises that she will not be able to keep. Clinton said that the job loss was due to having a Republican in the White House; yet she ran on her ability to create new jobs. Therefore, either she is using Bush as a scapegoat now, or she was telling New York voters in 2000 what Al Gore would be able to do for them, not what Hillary Clinton could get done. Either way, this reeks of dishonesty.

Clinton then said that, “22.7 million new jobs were created during the eight years of the Clinton administration, under my husband. We can create at least five million new jobs.” Now, in absolute terms, this is a postive, optimistic statement. However, with all the ambient grumbling about how a second Clinton administration would be a replica of the first one, I would argue that it is unwise for Hillary to show numerically, that the job creation during her presidency would be worse than her husband’s. It’s not that five million new jobs is a bad thing; it’s that she should realize how her statements will be taken. To ignore the contextual backdrop is to reveal a severe lack of understanding of the American people.

Tim Russert: 2.

With regard to foreign policy, Obama revealed a terrifying double standard of his. When Clinton quipped about Obama, “He basically threatened to bomb Pakistan,” Obama retorted, “If we have actionable intelligence against bin Laden or other key al Qaeda officials… and Pakistan is unwilling or unable to strike against them, we should.” So far, so good. But then he pointed to the fact that “just several days ago, in fact, this administration did exactly that and took out the third-ranking al Qaeda official.”

If Obama were using the Bush administration as a prime example of decision making and good judgment, there would be nothing wrong with this statement. However, just seconds after pointing to the actions of the Bush administration, Obama said that he has “put forward a plan that will provide a clean break against Bush and Cheney. And that is how we’re going to debate John McCain.”

Here, the logical fallacy is so dauntingly obvious that we can almost certainly conclude that McCain will eventually point out that Obama himself did, in fact, agree with much of the Bush administration’s handling of going after terrorists. The notion that somehow Clinton would be less credible in a debate with McCain over foreign policy will then vanish in a puff of logic. Should Obama be the Democratic nominee, it will happen.

Toward the end of the debate, Obama denounced Louis Farrakhan, which was not good enough for Clinton, who said that Obama should reject his endorsement. Then came a debate over the semantics of scorning anti-Semitic comments. Finally both candidates agreed that rejecting his support would be best in a sort of feel-good Democratic moment.

In this debate, Clinton let Obama get in the moving words. Going on her touching comments last time, I was almost expecting her to stand up and sing “God Bless America” for her closing statement. But she doesn’t sing. Maybe recite the pledge of allegiance. But no, the end was anti-climactic and Keith Olberman’s voice brought the professionally triumphant feel of a solid Tim Russert victory back down to the typical MSNBC level personified by the weekly cycle of Chris Matthews tearing apart, then worshiping Hillary Clinton.

Wow. I leave the country for a bit and everything gets turned on its head. Clinton starts winning again (or at least stops losing), Obama’s people are meeting with the Canadians, Bush endorses McCain, and the interminable Huckabee campaign finally terminates.

Well, now that I am back in the U.S., I have a lot of ground to make up in trying to analyze the shifting political dynamics. The next couple posts will try to deal with some of the events that have happened in the past couple weeks, starting with the Democratic debate in Cleveland and moving through the races last Tuesday, as well as the future direction for the three remaining candidates.

This post also marks the introduction of more micro-analysis. As the candidates start to emerge from the primary free-for-all, they, and their respective parties, will begin to rally ever more obstinately around certain issues and causes. Ideology is now fair play, and play it we shall.

So sit back and hold on, because contrary to the slow-down that appeared to have taken place on this blog, we are in fact beginning to accelerate. The issues are collecting front and center, and it is high time that they be reexamined in different light. The rhetoric will only take the candidates so far; reason and results will carry them the rest of the way.

Before I say anything else, who keeps putting Clinton on our right and Obama on our left when Clinton is right handed and Obama is left handed? Is this part of some subtle scheme to make the Democratic Party look more united by having the two of them awkwardly bump elbows? No. It’s just poor planning — something we can call the debate planners out on, but not the candidates. But we can call them out on other things. Which is the purpose of this post.

With that out of the way, let me just point out that last night Clinton was addressing Texas and Ohio, and Obama was addressing the nation. Obama could afford not to be political, so to speak, a luxury Clinton did not have. That was the major difference. That, and the yellow in Clinton’s collar at first made it look as though an antennaed insect was emerging from her neck. But after the first few minutes the effect faded. Everything else proceeded normally — to the point of boredom, I might add.

Until about an hour in, when CNN’s John King spoke of experiencing “one of those parallel universe moments,” referring to the awkward politeness that had pervaded the first part of the debate. Aaannd, the floodgates opened.

That’s not to say that there were no interesting parts in the first half of the debate. Obama declared that he would visit Raul Castro “without preconditions.” But in the same sentence he said, “although Senator Clinton is right that there has to be preparation.” I wonder if clearing any surface-to-air missiles from the Havana runway before Air Force One lands would fall under the category of preconditions or preparations.

Obama also brought up the DREAM Act when asked about immigration policy. Here we see the junior senator from Illinois hopping on the bandwagon of the senior senator from Illinois, Richard Durbin, who has pushed the bill in a manner similar to Sisyphus. But there is another force at work: the affinity toward bills with euphemistic titles that conveniently happen to double as acronyms. The DREAM Act is the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act.

Historically, bills with titles like these have been wonderfully popular. Take for example the USA PATRIOT Act, or the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act. Like I said, titles like these are invulnerable.

But the fun began with John King’s question. The unfinished debate about words and actions ensued. The words “plagiarism” and “xerox” were thrown around in just the right combination for the audience to begin booing at Clinton. But it didn’t last long. And notice how she smiles whenever she’s backed into a corner. When Obama pointed out that every major Texan newspaper had endorsed him, Clinton’s smile was the largest, most aggressive smile of the night.

After the “Xerox” debate, we moved on to the warm, fuzzy topic of health care (out of the frying pan…), and I have to say that in terms of policy decisions, both candidates are remarkably similar. Both have the goal of universal healthcare, but they have different ideas of how to reach this goal. And these minute differences filled about 20 minutes last night.

To be fair, if we take the candidates at their words, then the differences between them are astounding. For example, Obama’s table will have about 10 million times as many chairs as Clinton’s. He said, “everybody has to have a seat at the table,” and that “the American people have to be involved and educated.”

Commercial break.

Then, right after Jorge Ramos asked a question about the qualifications for commander in chief, more health care. The one question that was practically a gift to Clinton, and she pushed it aside because she didn’t want Obama to have the last word on how to make health care universal.

With regard to Iraq, Obama wanted to make clear that he didn’t oppose Iraq just “for the sake of opposing it.” His principle argument against the war was that it would distract us from Afghanistan and that this was unacceptable. I can see it now. “President Obama, China has attacked Taiwan. What do we do?” “Nothing, any action we take would distract us from Afghanistan.” Later in the debate, Obama also mentioned that Iraq had distracted us from Latin America.

But Obama says he’s prepared to lead. “I wouldn’t be running if I didn’t think I was prepared to be commander in chief.” If we follow this statement under the assumption that a qualification of being commander in chief is knowing who is prepared to be commander in chief, then we run into a logical loop that resembles a Cartesian circle. But this was a debate, not a philosophy seminar. Although Senator Obama described the differences between his and Clinton’s health care plans as “philosophical” and they spent forever and a day arguing over that.

Obama also said about veterans, “we still don’t screen properly for post-traumatic stress disorder and make sure that they’re getting the mental services that they need.” A popular notion, but quite an error. A Deptartment of Veterans Affairs official who wished to remain anonymous explained to me, “That is simply untrue. The VA has the world’s most advanced, widely implemented screening system and treatment for PTSD. Every time a veteran refuses help, it is a tragedy, but we cannot force them to stay. Those who do wish to receive treatment have access to the finest health care available.”

Over just the past two years, the annual appropriations for the VA have risen by over 22%, raising the figure to $90 billion. In a report released in January, the VA reported a total of 7.8 million patients enrolled in 2007. The VA is the only health organization in the world that 1) is totally funded by a federal government, and 2) exceeds the quality of almost all private health care. Instead of condemning the VA, perhaps Obama should use it as a realistic example of quality, government-funded health care, the sort that he wishes to bring to all Americans.

But on a lighter note, did anyone else hear Clinton scold John McCain for supporting the Iraq war? This happened shortly after Obama said that “it is going to be much easier for the candidate who was opposed to the concept of invading Iraq in the first place to have a debate about the wisdom of that decision.” When asked about John McCain’s claim that he is opposed to all earmark spending, Clinton retorted that “he supported the wasteful tax cuts of the Bush administration and the Iraq war.” One would expect an awkward silence to follow here, but instead there was applause. How quickly we forget.

Not that it will help Clinton. Obama will probably take Texas, despite my earlier prediction, and I think he will be much closer in Ohio than we are inclined to believe. He already has the lead in popular vote (by over 900,000) and delegates (even taking into account Clinton’s sixty or so lead in superdelegates).

Which brings us to superdelegates. When asked whether a nominee who had not been elected by the people would pose a problem to the party, Clinton’s response was priceless. “I think that it will work itself out.” Oh. What a high level of confidence you have in a system that many voters feel is undemocratic and obsolete. Obama, however, decided to pounce — delicately. “I think it is important, given how hard Senator Clinton and I have been working, that these primaries and caucuses count for something.” Carefully crafted, that statement had no weak point, and Clinton had no response.

At the end of the debate Clinton did something unexpected. Well, I use that term loosely. I didn’t see it coming, but in retrospect, it seems the logical thing for her to have done. Clinton gave the most moving two minute sound bite I have ever heard from her.

But one part in particular caught my attention. She said, “I was called by my faith and by my upbringing” to public service. By my faith. As if to insinuate, “God is on my side.” The five words left unsaid. But in the minds of so many for whom the Obama magic has not yet faded, God is running against her.

“Some men you just can’t reach,” the warden said in reference to Paul Newman’s character Luke in the 1967 classic Cool Hand Luke. By some strange twist of fate, that was that line that happened to be going through my head when I read the CNN headline, “Huckabee ignoring GOP’s hints to quit presidential race.”

Some men you just can’t reach.

With every defeat, Mike Huckabee seems to be growing more and more tired, fatigued even. He’s not smiling at press conferences anymore. He’s constantly on the defensive. He seems to want to stick to his guns, even if there is no possible hope for victory left. He ain’t goin’ anywhere. And that’s just the message he wants us to take from this.

When I was in high school, one of my English teachers warned me about making comparisons for comparison’s sake. You need to extract something from it, he told me. Otherwise what’s the point? What do we learn from it?

That said, I’m about to make a comparison for comparison’s sake, and I will let you extract your own meaning.

I will always have imprinted in my mind the scene from Cool Hand Luke in which the guards make Luke shovel dirt from one patch of the land to the next, back and forth, trying to break his spirit. I sat there, fourteen years old, staring at the screen, infuriated. Physical abuse is one thing. Mental abuse another. But to try to crush someone’s soul? My adolescent mind couldn’t process this. And so I cheered as Luke kept shovelling, attempting to show that he wouldn’t be broken.

Now we find Huckabee in a similar situation. He has been beaten down, smitten, so to speak. He cannot win, and he knows it. But his continued presence has demonstrated that, in some twisted way, he won’t be broken.

To understand this comparison, we have to go back to the beginning of Governor Huckabee’s run for the White House, or at least when we first realized he was running. To be honest, I don’t even remember the beginning of his campaign; he sort of crept up on me. I would bet this is the case for most of us, at least those of us not from Arkansas. He was one in a field of only somewhat familiar faces in the first debates last year that included Sam Brownback, Jim Gilmore, Tom Tancredo, Duncan Hunter, and Tommy Thompson. Huckabee was just another member of the B-team, expected to be weeded out when the big players like Giuliani, McCain, and Romney started playing hardball.

But as the field was narrowed, somehow Huckabee always made the cut. Remember our surprise in November and December when Huckabee started matching Romney in polls? Wow, we thought, a surge from the little guy. When he won Iowa, the wow factor doubled. Where did this guy come from? We only knew him as the candidate fourth from the left in the first debate in April.

Somehow he persisted. Bigger, stronger candidates fell around him. Fred Thompson, Giuliani, and Romney all caved. But Huckabee was still in the yard, shovelling dirt, a determined grimace on his ever less smiling face.

There’s a lot to be said for determination. It’s kept Huckabee on ballots across the country, but it’s done more than that for him. Six years ago, when his weight problem took a toll on his health, Huckabee lost over 100 pounds in one year. Whether we like his policies or not, this man has shown that determination is his ally, and that he has the resolve to stick with it, something we have yet to see in other candidates who run on “hope” and “change.”

Saying nothing about his policies, Mike Huckabee embodies the spirit that I want in a President. He has shown that he is not below any ambition, and at the same time, that he is not above getting his hands dirty to achieve it.

If we look at fundraising figures and campaign budgets, it’s obvious that Huckabee has not bought his way to the final four. He has been outspent in every single state, ranking twelfth in terms of actual money raised and spent. Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, and even seasonal favorite Fred Thompson spent more during their brief appearances than Huckabee has spent on his entire campaign to date. Hillary Clinton has spent almost thirteen times as much, and it looks like it will get her the same position as Huckabee: runner-up for the party nomination.

Huckabee has done an incredible amount with so little. He naturally appeals to social conservatives and even members of other branches of modern conservatism. He has shown that he can hold his own with the big dogs, and even tonight, he’s still out in the yard shovelling dirt. When compared to the other candidates in terms of money and endorsements, Huckabee has close to nothing. But as Luke told us in Cool Hand Luke, right after winning a game of poker on a bluff, “Sometimes nothing can be a real cool hand.”

It was a moderately cool, sunny Saturday afternoon — October 21st, 2006 to be exact – when my friend and I turned onto Harrison Avenue in Boston’s Chinatown. Whoops. Anticipating a relatively quiet walk to my friend’s favorite Chinese restaurant, we were taken aback to see several thousand people gathered along the street with Deval Patrick signs. At the Essex Street intersection a makeshift stage was set up, with Mr. Patrick himself climbing the stairs to the podium.

The energy swept from the stage and through the crowd as Patrick started talking, thanking his supporters. People waved their campaign signs and cheered. I have to admit, however, that my friend and I were not impressed. It’s not that the energy wasn’t contagious. It’s just that we had already been vaccinated against it.

Two weeks earlier, we had been walking in a group through Cambridge toward Harvard Square when a man on a street corner wearing a “Deval Patrick” button asked us who we were voting for. A member of the group said that he didn’t want to share that information. All of us were, in fact, registered in other states, so none of us would be voting for or against Patrick. These answers didn’t sit well with the man.

He walked closer to us, dropping several obscene words, and asked if we wanted more of George W. Bush. The question seemed irrelevant to me, as Deval Patrick was running for Governor of Massachusetts, to replace Mitt Romney, having nothing to do with Bush. Pointing out this bit of information didn’t help either; it only angered the man. Finally, after scolding us for some reason or another, the man stopped following us, and we continued on our way.

So you can understand why, two weeks later, the sight of Mr. Patrick didn’t exactly invigorate my friend and me. It was like a child’s first ”enlightened” Christmas, when they run down the stairs and see the presents, and the excitement is still there, but the magic is gone. And the magic, the promise, the hope — that is the key. In every venture, if you can hold a card up your sleeve, then people will flock to you in wonder and awe. Why do so many people love magic shows? Because there is an element of the mystical to it, something seemingly unexplainable but still being performed in front of our very eyes.

My friend and I stood on the corner and watched for a moment, but then we continued on toward the restaurant, distanced from the energy of the crowd. It’s not that Patrick wasn’t engaging. And it’s not that we held any resentment toward the candidate himself. It’s just after being confronted by the man on the corner, the magic was gone.

Now let’s speed ahead a year and four months. Here we are, in the midst of a presidential election, and — lo and behold — Barack Obama has borrowed rhetoric from a speech that Deval Patrick gave the week before I saw him in Chinatown. Responding to the then Lieutenant Governor, Kerry Healey, who was also running to be Governor, Patrick said:

Her dismissive point, and I hear it a lot from her staff, is all I have to offer is words. Just words. ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal’ — just words. Just words. ‘We have nothing to fear but fear itself’ — just words. ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country’ — just words. ‘I have a dream’ — just words.

Quite a poignant and inspiring bit of speak. It worked wonders for Patrick, who won the gubernatorial race. This Saturday, Obama tried his hand with the rhetoric, in response to Hillary Clinton’s distinction between Obama’s words and her actions:

Don’t tell me words don’t matter! ‘I have a dream.’ Just words. ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’ Just words. ‘We have nothing to fear but fear itself.’ Just words, just speeches!

Just speeches. Just words. Ironically, by reusing these words, Obama has proved that that’s all they are. The message that both Patrick and Obama were trying to convey in their respective speeches was that words precede and bring about action, that words are the powerful drivers of the course of history, that words cannot be stripped of their meaning by cynical politicians who happen to be running against the word-users. What they conveyed instead, is that words are recyclable and malleable, and that they do not necessarily carry the momentous principles of progress.

Now, those who have followed this blog since its inception know how I feel about words, but for the moment I want us to distance ourselves from the words themselves and look at the larger picture. In their campaigns, both Patrick and Obama have been advised by David Axelrod. This in itself is nothing remarkable, but when we look at the spirit of the campaigns, it becomes naggingly obvious that both have relied on a bottom-up approach in which everyday people are sent out to campaign and spread a message of hope.

After Patrick was elected, it seems that the voters in Massachusetts realized that the magic was gone. He alienated many parts of the Massachusetts legislature, even while trying to push them to pass elements of his agenda. Between February and March of 2007, Patrick’s approval rating dropped 20 points, and then evened out to the slight positive margin that you would expect from most Democratic Massachusetts governors. Once the appeal of the magic faded, Deval Patrick emerged as a politician, a man, a governor — not a savior. And that’s fine.

But we have to ask the question: if Obama is running a similar campaign to Patrick’s, then can we expect a similar “demagification” after his inauguration? It’s not that either is a bad candidate, so to speak; rather, it’s that our hopes have been raised so high, that we are afraid of a letdown.

But that’s the thing about bottom-up campaigns: at some point, we have to stop looking to the figurehead to bring about the fulfillment of the promises and begin looking in the mirror. We are the ones who affect this change, for better or for worse. Hundreds of thousands of college students are the agents of change. The screaming people at the Obama rally in Wilmington are the agents of change. The people in Chinatown two Octobers ago were agents of change. The man on the street corner in Cambridge was an agent of change, whence emerged our disenchantment. We had realized that Deval Patrick wasn’t going to change anything (at least not in the grand way we were led to believe); he was telling others to do it for him.

This is the strategy. 1) Use a message with broad appeal that can be easily repeated by normal everyday people. 2) Send them out and tell them to spread said message. 3) Repeat steps one and two until in office. A grass roots effort puts the electability of a candidate into the hands of everyday people. And if we buy into the message enough, then we’ll keep spreading it. Barack Obama is the personification of our hopes, but he is not the end-all fulfillment of these hopes. We are.

On February 5th, Obama himself said, “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” “We.” Not “me.” Not, “I will bring about change.” But “We will bring about change.” Here, Obama brings in every other American to share in the responsibility for bringing about change. If the promised changes are to occur, then Obama’s will not only be a bottom-up campaign, but also a bottom-up presidency.

Deval Patrick, upon endorsing Obama, said, “We proved here in Massachusetts that you have all the power you need to change the status quo — if you are willing to work for it.” Not even “we.” But “you.” You have the power; you will work for it. In fact, after taking office, Patrick inadvertently distanced himself from his campaign message by leasing a Cadillac. Not that this is bad in itself, by any means. But after promising to strenghthen the connection between the people and their government, and, as The Boston Globe pointed out, making some trivial and symbolic changes such as moving crowd control ropes and opening an elevator to the public, leasing a Cadillac put an awkward divide between him and the average voter.

Either way, there is a disconnect here. Whether or not Patrick was aware that his decision to choose a more expensive car would resonate poorly with voters, he did choose a Cadillac. And that signals either a knowing abandonment of his bottom-up fighting for the little guy message, or an honest to goodness failure to see how voters would interpret this action. Trivial? Yes. But it shows us how easily we can be let down by a candidate who plays on our hopes by promising change on the campaign trail. If we are promised the world, we expect the world. The slightest disappointment will shake our faith in all that we thought might happen. Then the magic will be lost.

If we actually believe, that if we vote a certain way, all our dreams will come true, then the letdown is inevitable. Our only hope now is to recognize exactly what Obama told us. “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” He is not. We don’t know what kind of president Obama might be. We do know that he is a powerful persuader and an inspirational speaker. So if we take his advice now, then we have to seize our own future.

We are our own agents. Whether we are standing on a street corner harassing passersby, screaming passionately at a rally, handing out pamphlets, registering people to vote, or walking unawares through Chinatown, we are acting of our own accord, not someone else’s. We are the magic. The promises that come from the top in a bottom-up movement are, quite simply, just words.

I’ve been paying so much attention recently to the race between Clinton and Obama, that I feel like I have neglected the Republicans. To be honest, I’m not totally sure what’s going on with them. And to be brutally honest, I’m not sure they know either.

Here’s what we do know. Today, Mitt Romney endorsed John McCain in an attempt to unify the Republican Party. It may yet do that, but thus far, it has caused quite a bit of confusion.

First, it forces an odd alliance between two bitter rivals. Not too long ago, McCain was convinced that Romney was a coward and Romney pinned McCain as a liar. And today they spoke about the high esteem in which they hold each other. It was a shock to see the two on the same stage and not see McCain snicker as Romney was talking — except, of course, when Romney mentioned the Democrats, then McCain smirked. Apparently he has a new target to smile at until they crack.

Then there are the poor conservative talk show radio hosts who have now been left without a champion. They’ve alienated Huckabee, called McCain a liberal, and pinned all of their hopes on Romney, who now, in their view, has sold out. Hopefully this will not frustrate Rush Limbaugh to the point of considering running himself in four years. I’m not sure a Hannity/Ingram ticket would go over well either. But that’s it — they’re left with their airwaves and loyal listeners who now have no idea what to do come election day.

The very continuance of the Huckabee campaign is befuddling in itself. Huckabee says that he wants to give voters an alternative and keep McCain sharp for the general election. Maybe we don’t know what to make of Huckabee because he has somehow managed to bring principles into politics without bringing about the Armageddon that we’ve all assumed such a paradox would inevitably entail. Impressive.

But tomorrow Huckabee is pausing his campaign to go to the Cayman Islands. He’s not vacationing though. He’s speaking at the Young Caymanian Leadership Awards. When confronted about this oddity, Huckabee simply makes a comment about earning his keep, as the other remaining candidates all can rely on their congressional salaries, even if they’re not present. He’s right, too. There go those principles again. They’ll get you every time.

Then there’s Ron Paul, who has made it very clear that he will not endorse McCain. And he’s said that he will remain a presidential candidate until the convention. But there’s a slight problem: he also needs to make sure he keeps his seat in the House — you know, just in case the whole commander in chief thing doesn’t work out. So now he’s running for two offices at the same time. To be fair, it’s been done before; just not amid a backdrop of so much confusion elsewhere in the ranks of the Republican Party.

Speaking of the House of Representatives and Republicans, where did they all go? They went outside to protest the fact that Democrats don’t want to grant immunity to telecommunications companies that helped with surveillance. So, naturally, they went outside. Filibustering has not been allowed in the House since 1842, so they are apparently a bit rusty on the actual procedure. Normally it is done indoors. But today, the Republicans just got up and left. Well, it’s not like anything else unusual was happening in the Republican Party at the time.

Add to this eclectic series of events the fact that McCain continues down his seemingly predetermined path from an earlier state of political mortem. Today, Wolf Blitzer wrote about McCain, “The stars are aligning for the Arizona senator.” Just as a refresher, on January 13th, I wrote, “It seems as if the planets have aligned perfectly for a McCain nomination.” Has Wolf Blitzer been visiting my blog? I’d only like to think so. I suppose that great minds think alike; I just got there a month in advance.

Well now, does that cover all the unusual happenings? Probably not, but it’s all I can take in at the moment without being overwhelmed. Sometime soon, they’re going to have to start getting serious again. But for now, the sense of urgency has receded as the Republicans can sit back and relax for a bit while the Democrats fight it out. Actually, no — only McCain can do that. But in some strange twist of fate, he has come to seem representative of the party into whose classifications he only somewhat fits. Another oddity, I suppose.

Superdelegates are not stupid. They have their reputations to consider when deciding who to back. Their decisions will not be accepted well by many of their constituents and supporters if they are viewed as going against the popular vote and using their super status to undermine the supposedly democratic process. So don’t be surprised when the superdelegates rally around the candidate who is ahead in regular delegate support, even if by a small margin.

That said, the race has ceased to center around reaching the finish line. Neither candidate will garner the necessary support to clench the nomination. And so, with several hundred superdelegates waiting in the last stretch to carry whoever’s ahead the rest of the way, the Democratic race is no longer about outrunning the bear chasing you. It is now about outrunning the guy next to you.

Both candidates are keenly aware of this emerging reality. And it means neither will catch a break. Now the focus has shifted toward winning as many of the remaining delegates as possible, so that when the times comes, one candidate will be able to say that protecting the democratic process and nominating him or her are the same thing.

But all this pressure has taken its toll on the Clinton camp, and it’s been showing recently. In fact, she seems to have her back against a wall. When an animal is cornered, its basest instinct is to lash out in a last ditch effort for survival. This is exactly what we are seeing with Clinton now. Here are ten examples.

1. Clinton has gone on a debate rampage, accepting offers by news networks and agencies to participate in debates with Barack Obama. She is jumping at every chance she has to be on the same stage with Obama, because this means that he’ll have less time on a stage by himself. When the two are together, they look similar under the umbrella of rationale. But when Obama speaks alone, he ignites a fire in the crowd and viewers at home. In a debate, Clinton gets to sit next to him with a fire extinguisher. Obama has agreed to one debate in Ohio, and less concretely to another one in Texas.

2. Clinton has begun publicly courting John Edwards. It is one thing to meet with him and discuss the possiblity of an endorsement, but quite another to say to the public, “I will be a fighter, and I intend to ask John Edwards to be a part of anything I do at the White House.” Really? Anything? That seems a bit codependent to me. The thought of it gives rise to a number of viral video possibilities full of spliced footage of Clinton and Edwards signing bills together with loving smiles while The Police’s “Every Breath You Take” plays in the background.

3. The virtual disappearance of Patti Solis Doyle, Clinton’s former campaign manager, has shown her to be the loser in the latest round of a drawn out game of musical chairs played by Clinton staff members. Her seat was taken by Maggie Williams. Campaign members say that Doyle stepped down by her own decision, but either way it’s a bad sign. It signals a lack of confidence in Doyle, whether it be from herself or from the high ups of the Clinton campaign.

4. Clinton has reverted to old campaign slogans that haven’t been very effective in the past. After her list of thank yous, Clinton kicked off her speech in El Paso Tuesday night with, “I’m tested. I’m ready.” Right off of a campaign sign from December, a simpler, happier time before Obama countered by distinguishing being ready on day one from being right on day one. But as the race heats up, Clinton appears to be grabbing onto anything that might help her make up ground, even just inches of it.

5. Clinton has resumed her old attacks on Obama, but in a more subtle way. In El Paso, she referred to the saying “all hat and no cattle.” Then she said, “Well, after seven years of George Bush, we need a lot less hat and a lot more cattle.” Playing off of Bush’s cowboy image, she was really saying, “All Senator Obama will give you is hat; I can provide the cattle.” Here she is attacking his vague campaign message of hope, and tries to shoot it down with a message of more substance.

6. Clinton has fallen into the habit of downplaying expectations. This is fine, if used for a state or two as a dampener to keep Obama from building too much momentum. But after eight successive “don’t expect us to win there” contests, it is clear that Clinton must change her message. Part of this is her misfortune of timing: eight naturally Obama-supporting states in a row can be a lot to handle. But this must stop if she is serious about winning the nomination. A record of downplaying expectations does not sit well with voters when considering the general election.

7. All of a sudden, the rules to which the Democratic Party agreed, with regard to Florida and Michigan, are being portrayed as more and more unfair by Clinton supporters. I could have told you this was unfair the day the decision was made. Totally disenfranchising their third and fifth largest state delegations was not only a gross overreaction, it was also downright irrational. But I suppose it only follows the pattern considering that the DNC Chairman has a tendency to scream when he loses an election. By the way, Howard Dean has made it clear that he will have nothing to do with the decision on revisiting the former decision, and that he will stay out of the Credentials Committee’s hair as they attempt to determine a solution.

8. There is a vast difference between a real Hillary Clinton smile, and a fake one. Lately, she has been wearing the latter. Look carefully, and behind the pleasant surface, you will find a deep anger at the unfairness of it all. You can hardly blame her. A couple months ago, she appeared to have this one in the bag. And now Obama’s popularity has frustrated her beyond normal limits. As she gets backed into the corner, the smile is wearing thin and beginning to show signs of a grimace.

9. While she did try to set up a debate in Wisconsin (naturally, for reasons described above), Clinton has spent a good deal of her time in Texas, a state that doesn’t vote for two and a half weeks. This signals a decision to cut her losses in Wisconsin, and focus heavily on a state that should already be her turf. In the larger picture, we see a strategy of trying to keep voters, rather than gain them. Obama, has been pursuing the latter, and thus has put Clinton on the defensive.

10. Now we come to the final — and pivotal — example of Clinton’s desperation. The words “must win” have been thrown around the Clinton camp in describing the races in Ohio and Texas. Even Mike Huckabee, down more than 600 delegates from McCain’s lead, has not used the words “must win.” Partially this is because every state — nay, every voter — is now a “must win” for him. But still, he has not given in to the pressure to use those two words of political seppuku. Now James Carville has said that if Clinton loses even one of her remaining strongholds, Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania, she will likely lose any shot at the nomination. Strong words from a man who once said, “I can make the Democratic voters think whatever I want them to.”

Does this mean that Clinton is out for sure? Not yet. It does mean that she’s starting to panic. And if there’s one thing you should do while being chased by a bear, it’s to keep your cool. Unforunately for Clinton, Obama seems to be doing a much better job with that basic rule, and the superdelegates may end up rewarding him for it.