Drum roll please

Well, it's here at last. Fat Tuesday..... party time!!! Oh, and Super-duper pooper-scooper Tuesday or whatever you want to call it.

It's doubtful anything major will break out in the Clinton - Obama contest today, but who knows? We won't be able to know the final delegate count from today's results for some time anyway. It will be interesting to watch California, which has been described by no less than James Carville himself as do or die for Hillary, and polling has Obama drawing even with her there.

It's a chance for Capt. Queeg to break away from Wink Martindale, who's bedeviled by the fact that Mike "What the huck?" Huckabee refuses to bow out and is mortally wounding Wink by taking votes which otherwise would have gone to him, thus providing Capt. Queeg with just enough margin to win.

The right wing loons are frothing with hatred for McCain, (well, they're paid millions to froth with hate, tell Republicans that it's OK to express their inner hate, and as a matter of fact, if they don't, they're not "real" Republicans. McCain is just their target du jour.)

I haven't mentioned this phenomena previously due to the rule that when the enemy is busy hanging themselves, you should just get out of the way. But it's with considerable glee that I watch a guy like McCain being flayed for being "too liberal". Wow. These die-hards still think the country is actually THAT conservative. (It never really was. Least of all the perverted brand of conservatism they represent.)

It's clear the Republican party, as it stands after the barbarians stormed the gates, is so full of truly and deeply disturbed people at the top willing to blatantly lie and misstate facts and deny reality, with so much greed and selfishness driven ideology, abject fear, anger, and mistrust that it would only take a pin-prick (or in this case I guess, a prick) to make the party explode Hindenburg-like and crash to the ground.

Only this time no one will be moved to utter, "Oh the humanity!" because there's so little there.

With Obama shining a bright light onto the true possibilities in this country if we discard all the mental rot and festering right-wing psychology that appeals to the very worst of human nature, the fanatic right wing loons are in panic at the prospect of being exposed the relentlessly negative frauds and shills they are and relegated to the trash heap of history where they belong.

Obama and to a lesser extent Clinton's messages stand in stark relief to the truly ugly and terribly ignorant nature of fundamentalist intolerance and rock-headed righteousness, the mindless machismo of the "kill 'em all" armchair warriors and those making billions off war and instability, and corporate shills bent on destroying government entirely, fixing the rules to allow corporate control of all aspects of government while leaving the vast majority of Americans struggling and fighting over the remaining scraps of the vanishing American dream. All of that could be gone tomorrow and the country would vastly improve.

And make no mistake, that's exactly what the corporate and right wing elite set out to do, get poor and middle class Americans fighting amongst themselves while they were busy looting the treasury and reaping billions. (Anyone who's worked in a shop will instantly recognize this tactic) And that's exactly what they did with great success. With Fox News providing the blatant misinformation and party propaganda and all the violence and cheesy sex to distract the rubes, they were busily raking in millions with both hands through no-bid contracts and shady dealings on Wall Street.

The Dem candidates are offering a different vision of America, and an end to the Republican scheme which has drug the nation down to new depths, plundered the economy, and abused our very government and constitution to cynically enrich the very wealthy and connected at the great expense of the poor and middle class, and to attempt to cement a grip on power with little or no accountibility to the public whatsoever.

And the right sees the writing on the wall. It's on the verge of a mental meltdown at the prospect of being exposed. At long last people are waking up. At long last, the emperor truly has no clothes.

Sit back and enjoy the show as the radical right takes a swan dive into overdue obscurity.

Not a whole lot of excitement on the local scene. Jacobs will ride to re-election on top of his bank account. It should be a lock. The only interesting thing about the race is to see how well Rumler does this time around and to see what sort of margin Jacobs gets for all the corporate PAC cash taken in and spent.

The Lack-Boland contest should be a little tighter, though I'll go out on a limb and say it's likely Boland will once again squeak by on the strength of the northern part of the district. But who knows?

So here's a thread for you to share your predictions and/or analyze the results.

Give your impressions of how the local campaigns were run (blessedly little negative campaigning... wonder why?) or on the national campaigns so far. Document the atrocities, highlights, lowlights, and/or your experience at the polls.

Here's a place to say what you think about this Tuesday February 5th election extravaganza.