Well, ya can't argue with that..

When Hillary Clinton declared recently that she's got "a broader base", I found myself thinking, "Well, ya got that right!".

Then I felt a tinge of guilt, but it went away.

And I'll feel sincerely sorry for her when she eventually bows out as well.

If anyone was born to campaign, it's the Clintons. And Hillary has had the near-tragic fortune to have gotten better and better on the stump as her chances of actually winning grew smaller and smaller.

I don't like her statements and the tactics she's employed, but then again, she's backed against the wall and faced with either blasting away with both barrels or watching it all slip away.

I'm sure that a part of the Clintons are frustrated beyond measure by the restraint they have to show in deference to the likely nominee.

I know they both want to see a Democrat win, and I also suspect that if this were a general election rather than a primary, they'd be employing a scorched earth policy that would likely leave Obama so bruised, battered, exhausted and confused that he'd be toast.

The fact that they have to pull their punches while watching their chances slip down the tubes has got to be a fate worse than death to two people so super-humanly devoted to winning elections, and with super-human amounts of stamina, drive, and always committed to keep fighting tooth, fang, and claw until someone (always them, so far) emerges the winner.

I realized recently that if Hillary goes down, it would be the first defeat for either Clinton since Bill lost his second bid for Arkansas governor (which he won again the next election.)

There's got to be a part of Hillary deep down that wants to show her husband what she can do as President. Maybe to get back at him in a way... maybe just from having to sit by most of the time while her husband was President, and having everything she tried to do as first lady dumped on and dismissed, and failing herself at the politics of health care reform.

I'm sure she's got a laundry list of things that she's carried around ever since that gives her an incredible inner drive to get back in the White House and do it right this time.... to REALLY put her stamp on things and accomplish goals that she (and the majority of Americans) believe are badly needed.

I have no doubt that she's driven by firmly held goals she wants to accomplish which she feels would help the country, and help the majority of its citizens, rather than the plutocracy, which have helped themselves without restraint for far too long now.

She's done OK at articulating those goals, but I'm sure that we don't know the half of it. Both Clinton's are devoted policy wonks, happy to plunge into the often arcane nuts and bolts of various programs and how to fund them, etc.

I have no doubt that Hillary would be excellent at domestic policy. In that respect, I'd be happy were she to be vice-president, though it appears that chance is zero to none.

If Clinton finally bows out, and it appears that she'll have to sooner or later, even if it's two minutes after Obama clinches the nomination, there will be a huge degree of sadness from many, including myself, that this valiant woman, possessing so much intelligence, energy, vision, and talent, capable of doing much good for this country and her people, will not get to realize the dreams she's clearly been working toward for several decades of her life.

It's never enjoyable to see someone get so maddeningly close to such a lofty and difficult goal, only to fall short by relative inches.

Despite the goofy polls which have gotten the pundits in a tizzy showing that Obama supporters won't support Hillary and Hillary supporters won't support Obama if either emerges the nominee, and even more goofy, the large number who supposedly say they'd vote for McCain rather than the other Democrat, I have no fear.

First, while it's amply demonstrated on a daily basis that yes, Americans ARE just that ignorant, short-sighted, shallow, and plain stupid, I still refuse to believe that any significant number of voters who supported Hillary, even passionately, would be so smack-ya-in-the-forehead stupid as to actually vote for McCain out of spite or sour grapes.

As I said, people are very, VERY dumb, but seriously, that would take the cake.

What kind of person could possibly support Hillary or Obama and their policy positions (pro life, anti-war, for universal health care, and on and on) and then decide to vote for someone who's the polar opposite simply because Hillary didn't get the nomination?

When you step back, the difference between Hillary and Obama is almost negligible as far as policy matters. If the political spectrum were a football field, Hillary and Obama would be between the 10 and 20 yard lines and McCain down the field and somewhere in the opposite end zone. There's a hell of a lot of difference between the clearly failed and destructive policies that McCain clings to and a return to sound, practical, policies that serve the people who pay for it all rather than the top 1%.

Assuming the people responding to these polls are even marginally rational in their decisions, (by no means assured.) that leaves only one ugly conclusion, that if these people actually would vote for McCain rather than Obama, given how far from Hillary McCain is positioned, the only possible reason must be ugly, irrational, flat-out racism. And that may explain Hillary's recent comments and their attempt to tout her strength with "hard working white voters".

(As to the issue of Hillary's recent statement regarding her strength with white voters, I don't think she was being racist in the slightest, as some try to suggest. I DO, however, think she knew exactly what she was doing, namely driving a wedge of race into the matter, and she isn't above cynically exploiting it (or anything else for that matter)).

Let's see, where was I? Oh yeah, I'm supremely confident that the much hyped splintering of Democrats and more importantly, independents and "Obamacans", won't happen on nearly the scale breathless Republicans and pundits suggest.

I think there will be an overwhelming outpouring of good feelings towards Hillary when she concedes, for all the reasons above, and the fact that there's NO ONE who can ignore just how tough, how tenacious, how hard she's battled and never given up and never given in, and frankly, for the reasons so many like her, that she's at heart a decent human being who truly has devoted her life to making life better for millions of people. All the cynical and calculating, phony and pandering moves she's made will be forgotten and forgiven nearly instantly.

The moment she makes a speech in which she extols Obama and her commitment to doing everything in her power to help him get elected, and the moment they appear on stage together and hold each other's hand above their heads, there's going to be such a rush of excitement and electricity that nothing will stop it.

That moment, that image, the new face, full of the promise of a new way of politics as we know it, and the devoted and worthy opponent who fought so valiantly and so hard, the face of the "old", an icon of the political history of this generation, embracing the new.

I'm telling you, McCain won't have a prayer, and they'll know it. And since they can't even compete on issues or policy, they'll uncork one of the most disgusting and slimy gutter politics campaigns ever seen.

And the public will get sick of it and it will blow up in their faces, and Obama will cruise to victory and Democrats will pick up large majorities in both houses.

It's a new day coming.

Republicans, we've got a few hundred tons of your "Get over it"'s to throw back in your faces. Turns out we're about to "get over it", just hope it's not too late to save the democracy.