Thursday, May 8th - Bitter End, but...

I took most of yesterday to detox - the usual way and politically. I spent most of the day on Tuesday in a fog of apprehension. I had read all the pundits and seen all the poll numbers, and I just did not get a good feeling about the outcome of the Indiana primary. I do not know what it was, and I was trying to tell myself that it was the same jitters that I felt before Pennsylvania, which obviously were not warranted. Added on top of that the anxiety of my grandmother going into major heart valve surgery, I was justifiably almost ulcerated with fear throughout the day.

I'm not sure why Indiana was so tough for a lot of people to predict. I think it was just a case of Indiana being so diverse demographically, which I am sure comes as a great shock to most people who think Indiana is mostly rural hilljacks. The fact is that while great parts of the state are indeed rural, between Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, Gary, Lafayette, South Bend and Bloomington we have very large pockets of racially, ethnically, and monitarily diverse populations. Then when you take into account that 25% of the population gets their news from the Chicago media market, there was no way in hell that this state was going to be a slam dunk for either candidate.

Obviously, even if Hillary is not destined for the nomination, I am thrilled to no end that I had a small part in her being the first woman to win the Indiana presidential primary, but the fact that it was so stressfully close, is also something that I am not happy about, because it appears that we also put the last nail in the coffin of her campaign. Sure, she will go on and win landslides in West Virginia and Kentucky, maybe win Montana and Puerto Rico, but the fact is that without something definiatively positive for her coming from Michigan and Florida, she simply does not have many avenues to explore. Sure, she could wait for some sort of major implosion from the Obama camp, but I just cannot imagine what that could be.

I am not ready to give up the fight yet, but it will be hard to deal with the blow back from the punditocracy and the blogosphere. Part of the reason I didn't post yesterday, is that I just didn't want to be at the computer, reading all my usual sites, and having to endure the gloating of the Obamabots. Indeed, I only visitied a few of my Clinton faithful sites, which save for a couple, all had posts resembling what I am saying now.

Tuesday night before Karaoke began, we were sitting out on the patio at the Metro having a political discussion. The question was posited to me as to whether I will support Obama in November and if I would work on his campaign. The answers is "yes" to the first and "no" to the second. I still do not believe that Barack Obama has what it takes to be a good president. I believe that we will endure a couple years of misteps before he gets his sealegs (that is if he actually wins ... which I think the jury is still out). He gets my begruding vote, but it is for one, singular reason, and that is that there could possibly three Supreme Court vacancies in the next four years, and we absolutely cannot have John McCain in power to fill the court with even more concervativism. Granted, a President McCain will probably be facing very large Democratric majorities in the House and Senate, but it is still a risk I am not willing to take.

My political focus will now be for the gubernatorial race here in Indiana. I plan on seeing what I can do to help get Jill Long Thompson elected as the first female governor of Indiana.

I still believe in you, Hillary!