The End is Near?

Is the Democratic primary finally going to end tonight? Will Sen. Clinton concede tonight, tomorrow, or later this week? How do I get Terry McAuliffe off my TV? These are the questions that news pundits have been obsessing over for days.

Despite my cynicism, I would like to believe that these next few days will see the end of the primary season and the beginning of the official, awkward transition to the general election for Democrats. Still, there's part of me that remembers that Camp Clinton has spent the last several weeks creating a narrative that she is the actual winner of the primary (the reasons are various and change on a weekly basis) and that her due was stolen from her by a conspiracy of sexism and elitism... and all that voting people did (a narrative as ingrained now to her diehard supporters as the Iraq-WMD-9/11 lies are to the diehard Bushies). And it does seem hard to believe she spent so much doing that-- and I'm ignoring all the other insane spin and weekly controversies we've been through-- if she was just going to bow out gracefully once the mathematical obvious was confirmed at the end of the primary process. A convention battle still to me seems unlikely, but it's clear she intends to (at the very least) leave that door open.

Still, all this speculating is masturbatory for now. Montana and South Dakota vote today, and we will see what their voters have to say. And then the remaining superdelegates will come out of hiding and make their arbitrary decision. And then hopefully Democrats will remember that there's a fairly popular guy named John McCain who is also running for President and that maybe we should start taking him on.