Pop a top to get through another month

Wednesdays remain busy at my real job so I didn't get to offer my post-Pennsylvania analysis this morning. Just as well. I had nothing to add that others weren't saying. Clinton won by 9 points giving her a reason to continue the campaign while Obama ensured that he will win the pledged delegate race and probably the nomination unless the remaining uncommitted super delegates overrule the blah blah blah. You've heard this.

Here's the thing. Practically, Obama has won the nomination. If all the remaining voters and superdelegates announced their intention tomorrow it would be done. Instead we must endure traditional existence within the space time continuum. Thus, the next several weeks are going to be really ugly in the Democratic party. Democrats have a chance to end it with an Obama sweep of North Carolina and Indiana, but Clinton might well eke it out in Indiana. After that it's nothing but miles and miles of Appalachia. We will endure more moronic pandering (enough to make Monday night's WWE appearances by Clinton and Obama seem like JFK in East Berlin) through these heavily pro-Clinton but delegate-poor states like West Virginia and Kentucky. I fear many in the progressive blogging community -- heavily pro-Obama -- will suffer serious medical problems. Thus, my advice.

Get drunk. Stay drunk.

If you can't afford it make your own. That's what they do in Appalachia. And they might vote Clinton there but they also don't worry about things Joe Scarborough says on MSNBC and that's where I want to be.

The outcome (Obama wins) will be assured in June, but June is far away. Keep blogging if you want. Post to your heart's content. Media people, keep on pontificating. Political observers; keep on observin'. Hey, I don't even care if you're with Obama or Clinton. But for everyone's sake we've all got to figure out some way to keep heart rates down. It's a long haul to November.

I know it's tacky for the Iron Ranger to pitch drinking as a problem solver. Don't take me literally here. I'm just saying that ONE way to make the next two months seem fuzzy and more pleasant than they actually are is to drink a lot. There are probably others. Ideas?

Hey Pennsylvania relatives, please end this

Oh hell, let's talk about the elephant in the room. I'm trying to avoid excessive thought about today's Pennsylvania primary. I'd really like this race to wrap up soon, not because I'm an Barack Obama supporter (I am, but that's so cliche) but because this campaign has become something of a self-satire. In other words, paid satirists couldn't invent a scenario more ridiculous than reality.

Normally, I'd be on the phone to my relatives in Pennsylvania, but most of them are Republicans (at least last we talked about it). My grandparents and I were going through the family history last summer. Everything my Pennsylvania family wrote in the 1860s and '70s reads like a political ad for Ulysses S. Grant (they loved Grant ... a lot). By and large the family has kept voting "R" ever since.

Obama's back in command of the national polls, but Hillary Clinton has a lot of built-in advantages in Pennsylvania and will probably win. My prediction is Clinton by six. I should be doing the political hack thing and lowering expectations but if she wins by more than six I'll be depressed anyway.