[UPDATE: Someone asked I add the picture below. Never let it be said I don't take requests! :)]
(This diary is cross-posted at MyDD)
-------------------------------------------------------------
It is almost over.
Losing 3 out of 4 of the Super Tuesday II states, including two of the largest states in the nation. One of them a crucial swing state for Democrats' November hopes.
Your own adviser saying you aren't ready to take a 3 AM call.
A political fixer who helped raise you money and whom your house is linked with is facing down Patrick Fitzgerald -- the man who bagged Scooter Libby -- in court.
What is the final straw?
Is it John Edwards coming out to endorse your opponent before the North Carolina primary?
Is it another aide fired ('resigned') after making a monstrous remark?
Is it the pressure of doubt knowing you haven't been able to win any of the most important large states which Dems MUST carry in November? Is this the strain which saw you take the day off a few days ago?
*
*
Senator Barack Obama has run a solid campaign. There is much about the campaign I have problems with personally, but I applaud what the senator has been able to accomplish in his run and the precedent he has set for future campaigns.
So I come today to pay my respects. As the wheels of the "Obama 2008" bus came careening off following Super Tuesday II, you almost felt bad for the 1st-term senator. Because you think that he and his not-ready-for-prime-time advisers finally realized who and what they were up against, the enormity of it all.
The race which the Obamaphile media wanted desperately to be over on March 4th began to look over -- but not for their guy. You could see it in the anchorpersons' calm and reserve what was happening. The Saturday Night Live skits had been such a hit because everyone could relate to the truth of them, the fawning which had been so misplaced yet pervasive.
And now the fawning had ceased, and fortunes had switched.
There was a time, I believe, when the New York senator referred to her husband as a 'force of nature.'
In the wake of the week -- and in the coming months -- Senator Obama may very well wish to echo that sentiment about his one-time opponent.