It’ felt touch and go at times, but I did manage to make it thru PDC prep, PDC itself, shipping IPy 2.0 RC1 and Halloween relatively unscathed. I was Superman for Halloween – the perils of letting the five year old pick everyone’s costume, we we’re *all* Superman (well, Jules and Riley were Supergirl) – but given how exhausted I was, I could have skipped the costume and just gone as a zombie.

My inbox is currently just under 500 messages, I’ve got a mountain of stuff to finish for IPy RTM, I’m presenting at the p&p Summit and I’m finally get some attention from the legal dept (now that we’re past PDC). In other words, it’s not the end of PDC is ushering in a golden age of zero work for Harry. But with PDC in my rear view mirror, I don’t feel quite so overwhelmed as I did.

And on top of all this, I’ve been borderline obsessed with election news. I’ve basically given up on all my non-political blog reading – if I hadn’t been working on PDC I might not have even been aware of the big announcements like Oslo and Azure. Things are looking good for Obama and the Democrats, but as this hilarious video shows “Being in a good position to win is not the same as winning.” I haven’t had the time to volunteer for Obama but my father has been volunteering for Obama in Northern Virginia – aka “communist country”. It sure would be nice to see my home state go blue.

In Febuary, when I said “Romney’s a real douche bag”, several upset commenters vowed never to read my blog again. I was even called a bigot (though Dale jumped in and explained how wrong a charge that is). Frankly, anytime I run a political post, especially ones where I call prominent Republicans names, that’s the reaction I expect.

So it kinda surprised me that the response to calling McCain a dick and his campaign an embarrassment was so tepid. No outrage. No promises to unsubscribe nor predictions that others would do likewise. Dale sounds like he agrees that McCain’s campaign is an embarrassment, even though he clearly supports McCain. RandyG doesn’t have anything to say about McCain one way or the other, but he thinks Obama is a “pompous dick”. Only BigJ provides any defense of McCain at all, but it’s an extremely weak defense. He described McCain as “not afraid to tick off a powerful, influential, big money contributor”, which I would expect is hard to say out loud with a straight face. Given that McCain has raked in millions in contributions from the oil industry after flip-flopping on offshore drilling, describing the Hilton’s $4,600 contribution as “powerful, influential, big money” is laughable. Hell, McCain is returning ten times that amount in “unusual” (read: possibly illegal) contributions because they “just didn’t sound right”.

I figure there are two main possible reasons for the lack of outrage:

• All my readers who are willing to unsubscribe because I don’t agree with their political view have already left, leaving only those who agree with or simply ignore my political posts.
• The number of people willing to stand up and defend McCain, even anonymously in my small corner of the Internet, is very small.

Personally, I probably a little of both, but I’m guessing it’s more the latter than the former.

This segment on last night’s Daily Show was fantastic.

At the rate McCain’s going, Jon Stewart is going to have to change this segment to “McCain’s Dick Move of the Day”. I don’t know which is more embarrassing, McCain’s campaign or the mainstream media coverage of the campaign.

My wife and I usually watch The Daily Show a day late and yesterday was no exception. Hillary Clinton was the guest Monday night in advance of yesterday’s big primaries in Ohio and Texas which Jon Stewart called the “Ultimate Last Final Showdown (Unless Hillary Wins One or Both of the Larger States)”. If you missed it, you can watch the interview online (part 1, part 2).

I haven’t seen much ‘raw footage’ from either Democratic candidate in quite some time, and through most of the interview all I could think was “I may have an Obama flair on my website, but I’d be happy with Hillary”. However, there was a section of the interview where she was trying to draw a distinction between her and Obama that didn’t sit well with me. She’s been on this whole “action not words” kick of late, trying to take the wind out of Obama’s sails. For example, in her speech last night in Ohio, she said this:

Americans don’t need more promises. They’ve heard plenty of speeches. They deserve solutions and they deserve them now.

America needs a president who’s ready to lead, ready to stand up for what’s right even when it’s hard. And after seven long years of George W. Bush, we sure are ready for a president who will be a fighter, a doer and a champion for the American people again.

To be clear, this kind of talk doesn’t bother me on it merits. Some folks aren’t happy with Clinton because she’s “dumpster diving” or they think that she’s ripping the party apart. I think she’s fighting for her political career and I would hope any Democratic candidate would go down swinging as it were. Besides, as Howard Dean said, the negative campaigning we’ve seen so far is a “tea party” compared to what the Republicans will throw at the eventual nominee. I’d also make the argument that it’s better to get as much of this stuff “out there” now so that it’s old news by November. That that doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?

However, I do think Clinton is painting herself into a general election corner with this experience vs. change strategy.

I get why Clinton played the experience card – she had to do something to take the wind out of Obama’s sails after 11 straight victories. If the popular primary vote results from Tuesday are any indication, the experience message is working for her. So I would expect we’ll hear a lot more about how we “don’t need more promises” but that we need a president “who’s ready to lead” in the next seven weeks ahead before the Pennsylvania primary.

However, if she does win the nomination, she’ll have to to argue the exact opposite position in the general election. I’m certainly no fan of McCain, but there’s no question his 25 years in Washington will cast him as the “experience” candidate (even though he hasn’t accomplished much in that quarter century). Plus, with the Howard Dean already framing McCain as “four more years of George Bush”, it’s pretty obvious either Democratic candidate will be cast as the “change” candidate.

Will Clinton have credibility running as the candidate for change when she’s spent the spring arguing that experience matters most? I don’t know. Combined with the rabid anti-Clinton (both her and her husband) emotions her candidacy is assuredly going invoke among conservatives, I’m much more concerned about her ability to win in November than Obama’s.

In the end, I doubt it will matter. Obama’s roughly 160 pledged delegate lead seems pretty insurmountable. Even with Clinton’s impressive victories yesterday, estimates are that she’s going to only net around ten delegates total, meaning the delegate math is largely unchanged. With only 561 delegates left in the remaining twelve contests, she would need to win almost 65% of the remaining delegates just to draw even. Frankly, that’s not possible given proportional delegate allocation method that Democrats use. At this point, her only hope is to cut the margin as much as possible and hope the undeclared superdelegates break her way. Hope isn’t a strategy, but I don’t see how she has any other option.

Steve Benen points out:

You may have noticed, on bumpers or t-shirts, the “1.20.09” slogan. It denotes, of course, Inauguration Day for Bush’s successor.

I just thought I’d mention that after seven painful years, the Bush presidency will end exactly one year from today. It’s obviously something to look forward to.

It’s an awkward period in Democratic politics right now — a contentious presidential primary, a frustrated Democratic Congress — but looking at the light at the end of the tunnel, and knowing it’s probably not a train, might serve as a morale booster.

From the morale perspective, it’s worth noting the voter turnout in the primaries so far. Yesterdays’ Democratic Nevada primary is the third in a row to set turnout records. On the Republican side, Benen points out that McCain won South Carolina yesterday with a 135,000 votes but eight years ago, he got nearly 100,000 more votes in a losing effort. By my calculation, Republican South Carolina turnout was 30% less than it was in 2000.

Voter turnout in early primaries doesn’t make this election a sure thing by any means, but it sure is an encouraging sign.