Laying the groundwork for 2012?

Just about everyone recognizes that Hillary Clinton is probably a dead candidate walking...except the Clintons. Tuesday promises to be another split day. She should win big in Kentucky. She will once again get tons of white working class Democrats who fear what Obama represents to them...and I am not even going to try to interpret that. I lived in Kentucky for a while and married into a Kentucky family. There are all types there, and the media portrayal of whites who DON'T vote for Obama as racist is as untrue as it is, in it's own way, racist. But that is the culture we live in right now.

In Portland Oregon, where the other primary will take place on Tuesday, an estimated 75,000 came out to hear Obama speak. It certainly is a phenomenon. If you want to know what I think, you can go check out my first opinion piece at my new companion blog, Lincoln's Ghost. That blog will have the opinion that I strive to keep out of this one!

Where do we stand? Nothing has changed except we are another week closer to the reality of this campaign: Obama will be the Democrat Party nominee. What are his chances? Try as they might to downplay it, the problem he has with blue-collar Democrats is serious...and I'm not sure how he can fix it. His latest screed against some of their sacred cow lifestyle choices(SUVs, food, energy usage) will not help. I wonder if he hasn't decided to ignore that part of his base the same way McCain is ignoring part of his. It will be interesting to see if two candidates can realistically realign their parties by themselves. I doubt it.

In other news, Obama reacted to a Bush speech in the Israeli Knesset the other day. Bush was criticizing those who appease dictators and made the comparison to the appeasement of Hitler in 1939. Bush quoted the misguided statement of Republican Senator Borah who, in 1939, said, in response to Hitler's invasion of Poland: "Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided."

Obama instantly criticized Bush for inserting domestic politics into a speech in a foreign country. This has traditionally been a no-no in American politics. The Bush peoples response was "I understand when you’re running for office you sometimes think the world revolves around you — that is not always true and it is not true in this case," said Bush press secretary Dana Perino. Ouch. Methinks Senator Obama doth protest too much. Why did he think that comment was aimed at him? Further background from the Bush White House pointed out that the comments were actually aimed at former President Carter who was recently on his tour of Israel-hating representatives and a comment on Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visits to Syria and comments on "dialoguing" with Iran's Achmadinejad. Obama was criticized for being thin-skinned by many of his supporters in the media and seems to often have a hard time letting critical comments go, revisiting the offenses over and over. Over the next 5 months, that might not be the best strategy.

McCain jumped on the comment as well, trying to also remind their his base that he contends that he is a conservative. More grist for the mill, as he also took time Saturday to appear on Saturday Night Live in a week that included another guest appearance on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show. It seems that he may have a career in television if the Oval Office thing doesn't work out. His two skits included the obligatory jokes about his age and an encouraging word to Clinton and Obama to keep the fight going for a while longer.

Will Tuesday make any difference? No. There are already rumors that the Clintons have some tape of a talk given by Michelle Obama that will "change the race for the nomination" but that sounds more like fantasy than anything else.

Look for each to have huge victories, and corresponding parties, in their victories state, and look for Obama to officially announce the race over. The intent is to justify his ignoring of Clinton from Tuesday on and into full-attack mode on Senator McCain.

Should be fun.

Coach