More than worrying, I'm cursing aloud here at home. All the polls show Clinton tying or in the lead in Ohio and Texas, with all the momentum, too. And it pisses me off. Most of the news analysis says it has to do with one of two things, her pity-party complaints about how the Press hates her, which led to lots of coverage and favorable stories this last week, and a flap from Canada prompted by the Bush-chum Prime Minister there, about an Obama rep telling them he really does support NAFTA, despite what he is saying in Ohio.

Do you all understand that the Republicans would rather face Hillary in November? Is that getting through? Should she be the nominee, I will certainly vote for her, but she had damn well better win the thing. If she doesn't, she will have screwed the Democratic party but good. If Obama does not win the nomination, it will be almost impossible for him to run again (at least on a platform of hope and change) in 2012 or 2016. I think this country needs that hope, and that change.

If Hillary does manage to win (no doubt with a lot of her typical campaign strategies), she would be the first woman President, but she will get nothing done in an environment of hostile partisanship she brings on herself with her divisive politics. If she wins the nomination, and if she wins the election, she will find it next to impossible to govern. Universal health care? Not if Congress can't pass it. Out of the war? No way, she's too hawkish.

Why don't you all see that? Whine, whine, whine, I know. But if it weren't for the Supreme Court issue, I might think about voting for McCain vs. Hillary. Damn it.

Okay, the last I have to say on the topic of politics for a while. It is pretty clear from all the polling that women are voting for Hillary in large numbers, and African-Americans are voting for Obama in large numbers. The Press has mostly discussed this in the context of men not voting for Hillary, and whites not voting for Obama, but the flip side is more important to me.

Voting for Hillary because she's a woman is a stupid way to pick a President. The same is true of voting for Obama because he's black. I understand that it has been a long time coming, and that either one is likely to be the best chance in a generation for a woman/African-American to ascend to the highest office. But you can't vote with your heart when you're choosing the leader of the free world.

As a white man, I know I don't have much footing here, except to say that I would clearly vote for either of them over the white man in the race (McCain), but not based on race or gender. Nor, truth be told, on the issues. Obama and Clinton are very close on most points, close enough that the differences aren't important to me. Rather, I voted for them based on what kind of President I think they will be, and whether they can beat the white guy in November.

It doesn't matter to me if my President is white, black, male or female. And it really shouldn't matter to you.

So, today John Kerry endorsed Barack Obama for President. And my wife and I both thought, is that a good thing? John Edwards released a statement to the effect that he thought Kerry could endorse whomever he wanted, while surely dancing a jig that the Monotone Drone would not be "campaigning" for him this time. Apparently Kerry wanted to do this before Iowa, but Obama's campaign asked him not to. Now with a week until SC, maybe they figure there's time to box him back up in DC where he can do little lasting harm.

She won in New Hampshire, reportedly, because she showed her softer side. But, as reported in the Boston Globe the day before the primary, she also showed another side: the fear-mongering side. Ripping a page out of the Cheney-Bush playbook, Clinton pointed out that voters should be concerned about how the next President would deal with an inevitable terrorist attack. Let me paraphrase the Boston Globe story. "Vote for me! I am strong! I will protect you from Evil. That other guy is weak. He will leave you open to the terrorists!" This disgusts me, and reinforces my belief that Hillary Clinton does not promise us a better country, just a similar country to the one we have now, run by Democrats instead of Republicans. I'll take that if I have to, but at the moment, I don't have to.