Why are they not always being challenged when they put forth the nonsense that if someone is not the top vote getter in a primary then he or she cannot carry the state in the upcoming national election?

Also, great point on why do we need to know the results 22 minutes after the pools close.

This instant need to know and/or to be the first to report it is what gave us George Bush the first time around when Al Gore was unwise enough to believe what he heard on TV and conceded, creating a perception that would not go away.

I made it through the countless hours of last night’s torture by reading in a startlingly graphic historical romance novel, putting down my book for selected interesting stuff and people. (read Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Eugene Robinson, and then Andrea Mitchell and Howard Fineman on the Clinton campaign’s finances.)

I thought that the most important point of the night was near the end when Keith commented that it was a good result for cable news. And it is, as the ongoing campaign is what is pumping their ratings.

I found the first 20 minutes or so very moving as it was as if Chris Matthews had taken off his shrill, blustering, chest pounding persona and was a real thinking person. At about 20 minutes in he started a low key discussion of how the press was creating all this ongoing hype and chaos when there was no way Hillary could really get enough votes to win this, that mathematically it was all over.

He knows this, and yet…..

the old Matthews was soon back and into the swing of promoting conflict, real and artificial.

Giving people false hope is cruel.

It is also what may well lead to feelings of betrayal and dare I write BITTERNESS so that people feel they cannot support the candidate who beat theirs.

Lines I would wish forever gone and forgotten (see Ready From Day 1) now include: Can’t close the deal.

Was there ever any reasonable doubt but that Hillary Clinton would win PA? This state is her ideal demographic. Yes, there were a few polls yesterday that suggested that Obama had narrowed the lead into single digits, but there was also a big one that still showed her with a 22 point lead.

This was a huge registration and turnout, from what I have since heard and read, over twice what it was four years ago.

Even if some of that was Republicans who had registered as Democrats to try to skew the race, I think that the Democratic candidate will carry PA in the fall.

And not wanting 10% let alone 100% of Stef to smack me, I am trying really hard to breathe deep and know that if somehow Hillary is the candidate against John McCain, I will vote for her and not for Ralph Nader, even though I think he would be the much better President.