Ramble On...

It's almost the end of March, so I've had nearly three months to reflect on my no-sports experiment. When I first started the project, I was at a loss. I even wrote an entire post about my anxiety over finding things to keep my interest. Sports had always occupied such a large portion of my web surfing and TV watching time that I had no real idea how to occupy myself when faced with a blank browser window or the TV remote control.

Gradually I figured it out. Now the pattern is unmistakable.

The two subjects that have replaced sports in my life are politics, particularly the presidential race, and the economy. Both topics are covered in detail and quite well on the Internet, so that's what I read 90% of the time that I'm online. TV is a slightly different creature. In my opinion, only politics is covered well on TV. And that would be a stretch, were it not for the 4 shows I regularly watch.

My #1 source for news is Countdown with Keith Olbermann. I'm a big fan. His strong personality can be a little much at times, but otherwise I think it's a first rate news show. And of course there's The Daily Show & The Colbert Report. And last but not least, Real Time. I've always liked Bill Maher, but I've been enjoying more than usual lately.

Anyway, what's remarkable is that both topics are in the midst of riveting, historic eras. The housing/credit crisis has been unfolding as if in slow motion for months and still nobody knows where the bottom is or what exactly it will look like (the options seem to range from bad to worse). Meanwhile, the Democrats are tearing themselves apart to win the nomination while John McCain bumbles his way toward the White House.

Which brings me to my next point. Why is the Democratic primary race still going on? What am I missing? Mathematically Hillary cannot catch Obama in any of three categories: pledged delegates, popular vote, and total states won. What is the point? It's over. It's time for the superdelegates to step forward and call it for Obama.

I saw two different news items on The Huffington Post today that really got me thinking. First, and don't laugh, I saw the latest YouTube offering from Obama Girl. It was the first time I'd seen any of her work, and man, what a winner. Just great. Totally funny and right on point. But what struck me even more is that people are so psyched about Barack Obama that they'll actually write songs about him. It's an amazing phenomenon. The guy just has it. Charisma doesn't do justice to his gift. I'm not entirely sure what it is, but it's powerful. I think trust is a big part of the equation, but it's more than that I'm sure.

The second thing I saw was also on Huffington. The gist of the story is that the the prolonged democratic fight is clearly harming the Democrats and helping McCain. As obvious as that may sound, now that it's in the news it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

At what point will Hillary concede? I suppose she's hoping there's still a chance Obama will implode, somehow rendering him unelectable thus convincing the superdelegates to support her. One never knows what the future holds, but at this point that sure looks unlikely. If the Reverend Wright experience is any indication, it's going to take something pretty extreme to trip up Obama. He took a potentially crippling negative and turned it into huge opportunity. And the nation noticed. He didn't duck the issue. He didn't try to oversimplify it. He talked about it openly and intelligently.

Let's end this debate already so we can figure out how to beat McCain. Hillary can be the VP if she wants. Just get out of the way already.

Cheers,
Chris