Great speech from Michelle! She came across as warm, intelligent, and funny. I have a feeling that as the public gets to know her,  she’ll be an incredible asset to the campaign.

Ted looks GREAT, considering what he’s been through.  Great speech.

It’s a great feeling to be a Democrat tonight!

Mike Meehan is only trying to help Republicans. That’s why he’s posted a patriotic billboard in Orange County, Florida that shows the an image of the burning World Trade Center with the caption “Please Don’t Vote for a Democrat.”

Nice!

Remember, Bill Clinton was in office on September 11, 2001 and it was Bill Clinton who ignored the Daily Presidential Brief of August 6, 2001 entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US.”

So 9/11 is the fault of the Democrats.

See?

If you vote for Democrats, you’ll help cause another terrorist attack.

If you have any doubts,  Mr. Meehan was nice enough to post a video of his hit single, the Republican Song:

If you can’t bear to watch it, you can read the lyrics ,which are also really nice:

The Democrat secular progressive move,
political correctness is killing us too.
They want to take the money from the hard workin man,
and give it to the lazy folks that don’t give a damn.

Democrats and Liberals, shame on you,
don’t punish us all just to please a few,
Your holdin people back while we’re pickin up the slack,
and that’s why we can’t vote for a Democrat.
Oh no, a no, no, no, no, no, no…

See, the problem with Democrats is that they want to help lazy people (might that be code for something?) at the expense of all hard-working white Americans. That’s why if you read Obama’s platform, you’ll read that it’s just full of new entitlement programs for lazy people.

Seriously, I have a hard time imagining that these kinds of fact-free attacks will have much of an effect any more, but what’s to keep him from trying?

That Clinton will drop out on Saturday:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton will endorse Senator Barack Obama on Saturday, bringing a close to her 17-month campaign for the White House, aides said. Her decision came after Democrats urged her Wednesday to leave the race and allow the party to coalesce around Mr. Obama.

Howard Wolfson, one of Mrs. Clinton’s chief strategists, and other aides said she would express support for Mr. Obama and party unity at an event in Washington that day. One adviser said Mrs. Clinton would concede defeat, congratulate Mr. Obama and proclaim him the party’s nominee, while pledging to do what was needed to assure his victory in November.

Reading that article made me feel a little bit giddy, and it gave me a sense of relief.

Barack Obama  is the presumtpive Democratic nominee.

My giddiness can be explained by his having earned the nomination, and that fact is seeking in.

The relief is based on the fact that it now looks unlikely that the race will be decided after a long floor fight in Denver.  Democrats don’t seem to win when their conventions are ugly.

With Clinton out on Saturday, I’m glad that we can start focusing on McCain.

Ouch.

From Ramesh Thakur in the Canberra Times:

What seemed exciting and was drawing millions of new and young voters to politics is turning into a protracted guerrilla war. At the start of the campaign, Democrats were energised by having two great candidates. About three-quarters said they would be happy with either. That figure is now about 40 per cent.Based on demographics, the likely results in the main contests to come will be: Mississippi (March 11, 40, Obama); Pennsylvania (April 22, 187, Clinton); West Virginia (May 13, 39, Clinton); North Carolina (May 6, 134, Obama); Oregon (May 20, 65, Obama); and Indiana (May 6, 84, tie). A de facto stalemate by April-May means the contest will be decided on the convention floor in August.

If strong-arm tactics in the convention lead to superdelegates overturning Obama’s lead in pledged delegates, his outraged supporters will abandon the party in droves. If the nomination is awarded to Obama without counting the disqualified Michigan and Florida results, many Clinton supporters from those states will walk away from the party.

The party has allowed a state of confusion to arise that looks set to leave half of its voters furious. A party so politically and organisationally inept deserves to lose. The Republicans can neither believe their luck nor contain their glee.

I’m not quite sure what the party elders could have done to avoid what I think is an inevitable civil war in the Democratic party.

As an Obama partisan, I place the blame entirely on the Clinton team as they will do anything to win, even if it means denying Obama a victory in November so that she is set up to get the nomination in 2012.

I’m starting to think that if Hillary somehow gets the nomination, I’ll have to either vote McCain or stay home on election day….and I’m a partisan Democrat who has always voted for Democrats for president because it seemed better to vote for a lesser-evil than just plain evil.

It seems that Clintonism is a cancer on the party that can only be removed through electoral defeat. I’ll write more about that theme in the upcoming weeks.