How Life Changes in Just a Few Days

For the first time in months, I'm actually getting excited about the presidential campaigns again.

When my guy Mitt Romney dropped out of the race, I went into a funk. I didn't like how John McCain had attacked him during their race (unfairly) and I couldn't get excited about McCain or Huckabee as a candidate, as they were not sufficiently conservative for my tastes. I still feel good about the way in which Mitt left the race, with dignity, earlier than many had expected him to, and ostensibly for the good of the country so that the GOP could more quickly focus on the upcoming general election and its presumptive nominee, McCain. Unfortunately, Mike Huckabee showed none of the class of Romney, staying in the race (and keeping the GOP from naming its candidate) until he was finally knocked out quietly yesterday. In my opinion, Huckabee went from "decent and credible candidate" to "goat" in the past month.

To make matters worse, Empty Skirt Hillary Clinton, as I predicted, got steamrolled by Empty Suit Barack Obama, with media and public fervor for Obama reaching Messianic proportions. It really was getting ridiculous, all the swooning for Obama, and it showed no sign of stopping. With a 72-year-old poor orator like John McCain up against a late-40's brilliant orator like Obama and his supportive media entourage, the GOP was doomed and we had 9 months to consider that (and slowly watch it unfold).

Some remarkable things happened this week, though. First off, Rush Limbaugh came up with an interesting idea: In the big, pivotal primaries in Texas and Ohio, Republicans should cross over at the polling place, re-registering as Democrats, and vote for Hillary. This would have the effect of helping her to win those states, stopping the Obama steamroll and hopefully creating a donkey bloodbath. Conservative Republicans did this in droves, and reported later that they felt "dirty" and "sick to my stomach," along with "I hope we know what we're doing, here" as they pulled the handle for Clinton. Remarkably -- and we don't know how much Republicans had to do with it -- Hillary did, in fact, win both those primaries, which did stop the Obama juggernaut, did re-invigorate the Clinton campaign, and is generating the predicted bloodbath. This whole episode alone is cause for celebration.

Two proofs of the bloodbath having begun: 1) Obama has taken the first big swing of the bat at Hillary that I've seen since his campaign began: questioning, even ridiculing, her supposed "experience" as a politician, traveling the world and making an impact (as First Lady). Sounding like a Republican, Obama said yesterday, "What exactly is this foreign experience that she's claiming? I know she talks about visiting 80 countries [as First Lady, but] it's not clear what she had negotiated -- treaties or agreements, or she was handling crises during this period of time? My sense is, the answer is no." Yay!

2) Hillary's campaign has finally come out hard in support of including the vote counts from the Florida and Michigan primaries that were held in February, which she only won because Obama never campaigned there. He didn't campaign because the DNC said "don't campaign there" and further that those two states' delegates were not going to be counted because the states had moved up their primaries to earlier on the calendar, and this was their penalty. So Hillary won and it was barely even reported because it wasn't supposed to matter. Well now that she sees these two states as her ticket to actually beating Obama, she is fighting hard to get them included. This, of course, will turn out very badly for the Democrats no matter what. She looks bad because she's very clearly cheating (her friend Lanny Davis was on Sean Hannity's radio show the other day offering up a really ugly rationale for why she supposedly was not cheating by attempting this). The DNC looks bad because they have to respond to her while also not alienating the Florida and Michigan voters who they intended to penalize, and who are getting increasingly irate that their millions of votes are not being counted. This is cannibalism-as-entertainment.

Next, Hillary got really desperate and started swinging hard. The media still likes her and actually researched some of the chum that she was throwing out into the water. They finally clued in yesterday that one of Obama's close associates in Chicago politics, Tony Rezko, was going into trial that very day on fraud charges. This actually led to real questions being asked of Mr. Obama, and the very first gaffes by him since the campaign began. Perhaps the media honeymoon is over? Surely the media can now admit that they have never vetted this candidate, yes?

Finally, now that Hillary has had these two big wins, she not only has stalled Obama's momentum, but she has also closed the gap in delegate count. She still trails, but she is again within the "super delegate" margin. Super Delegates (Democrat party leaders) number in the hundreds and are allowed to vote their conscience, regardless of how their state voted. They overwhelmingly support Hillary, and could hand her the nomination at the convention, but not without seriously irritating the Obamamaniacs who will see it as an unfair twist and thwarting of the will of the people. It also makes the whole Florida/Michigan controversy that much more juicy. If those two states are included, then out of about 14 million votes cast, Hillary would trail Obama by about 3,000 votes. That's it. A race that close means the two candidates will practically try to kill each other until the very end, promising chaos and drainage of Democrat bank accounts for the next several months. All this while John McCain coasts.

So I'm downright giddy this week. And it's only Wednesday.