Florida Decides...

With the country ready to get rid of that guy who gave that speech Monday, we look at Florida... the final primary before Monster Tuesday!! The big news was on the Republican side, where John McCain won decidedly. He's already being discussed as the presumptive nominee, though Romney certainly has an opportunity on Tuesday to try and stop that. Mike Huckabee is pretty much finished (though a VP nomination consolation prize is likely, as McCain will need his populist charm to win over the voters he personally sneers at). Giuliani, as I previously mocked, is gone. This one primary seems to have settled quite a few things on this side.

On the Democratic side, however, nothing got settled because well, there were no delegates at stake. As I mentioned before, the DNC had stripped Michigan and Florida of their delegates as punishment for pushing ahead their primaries. Sen. Clinton is now-- despite joining Obama and Edwards at the time in supporting the decision-- fighting like hell to get those delegates seated anyway (when Keith Olbermann confronted her on this tonight, she just pulled a Bush and laughed off the question). And the reason why is obvious... by being the only name on the ballot in Michigan, she won that state, and she won again in Florida tonight (Obama and Edwards were on this ballot, though). I believe this is what is known as a big fucking mess. Super Tuesday may not settle this contest.

I'll end with this depressing thought... around 2006, everyone was expecting the 2008 election to be a bland contest between Sens. Clinton and McCain. But then toward the end of that year, and into 2007, many more candidates (some interesting, some notsomuch) entered the race and it looked people had some real options for once. It didn't have to be so predetermined. And yet as we reach the peak of primary season, a Clinton-McCain contest is looking to be what we may get after all. Democracy fucking rocks, no?