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My bet is she drops out of the race tomorrow. After being trounced in North Carolina and barely squeaking a win in Indiana, how could she not? Her speech tonight certainly had many elements of a resignation statement. And the look on Bill’s face? Totally checked out like he was planning his next golf game.

Update: she is still in it to win it - says she’ll be here til June at least. in the meantime, her campaign is still trying to force Michigan and Florida to count. she sure has some cojones! which is a fine thing. i have been told the same. but there is also the concept of grace humility and seeing what is best for all and not just for oneself, which she does not seem to have.

As much as I hate Matt Drudge… nice headline linking to Tim Russert on MSNBC saying it is over. No wonder she canceled her appearance on his show this morning.

I was working for Salon during the 2000 elections. It was a fun time - the Salon Politics site was in full swing. At the Salon Politics party in DC, I shared a taxi with a drunken Christopher Hitchens and later inadvertently invited myself up to Arianna Huffington’s place for drinks at 2 in the morning (she made the mistake of sitting next to me at dinner, graciously loaning me her coat when I got cold, deftly entertaining our table by engaging Stanley Crouch on what it means to be a Republican - she is not, he is - before allowing me and some of the other Salonistas up to her condo for “one last drink”).

What was not fun was election night. As the news room gathered around the tv to watch the votes roll in, the mood was eerie. I got home before the final tally and as I sat reloading the sites I was monitoring, I vowed to myself that I would leave the country if George W won.

I was pleased to be able to keep that promise to myself, sitting out the following 4 years and next election in France and sending money to any candidate I thought might have a fighting chance to beat the incumbent (I liked John Edwards back then too, ever since that profile the New Yorker ran in 2002). I watched all the debates from my office in Geneva with a funny mix of American and non-Americans where the unspoken rules were no one could heckle. It was hard. I was embarassed for myself and my country.

This time around I am back in the states and am already feeling anxious. I am obsessed with caucus, primary and polling data and leading up to February 5th is making me twitchy. From very early on, I have really liked Obama (possibly also from a New Yorker profile years ago?). I agree with those that say he is of the type of leader that only comes around once in a generation. I would feel proud with him in office. I even proclaimed my admiration in the most public of public ways in this day and age - I became his “fan” on facebook. I just wish he were a bit more progressive.

I have always had a soft spot for John Edwards. He is a smart and gentle Southern man that appeals to the Louisiana farm girl in me. Wouldn’t an Obama / Edwards ticket just kick some butt? Come on, admit it.

The on-line surveys tell me I should like Kucinich - but he, to borrow the phrase, didn’t have a snowballs’ chance in hell despite how cute his wife is.

But the one that I have not been able to stomach from the beginning is Hillary - and that is not only because her daughter Chelsea was a less than stellar intern at WHO before almost immediately going to McKinsey where she earns a rumored 500K (Seriously, not an impressive intern. But I suppose one doesn’t have to impress with actual work if you are part of the Clinton Clan.). Though I don’t think I’ll vow to leave the country if she wins.

Counting the days til Georgie is mister EX president…

And don’t just listen to me, here is better, more thoughtful reasoning for why one should support Obama - from the guy behind the very funny xkcd comic.

I’m behind in my reading. Way behind. In some magazines I read, I am still in the Virginia Tech news cycle. Which is why recently I read a short editorial on how Virginia Governor, Tim Kaine, immediately tried to deflect the forthcoming bipartisan finger pointing targeting lack of gun control for why the massacre happened. By focusing the brunt of the responsibility on the shooter Cho Seung-Hui’s mental illness, he could effectively deflect any criticism of the state’s gun laws. But it does not take a rocket scientist, bipartisan or not, to figure out that the lenient laws making it quick and easy to purchase handguns naturally lead to more people buying them, some of whom may have a serious mental illness.

In Virginia, there is no waiting period to buy a handgun. There is no background check that prevents people from buying one. There are no records of sale. There is only a permit required to carry a handgun on your person if it is concealed. And, most disturbing to me, is that though there are Federal programs that ask states for statistics on who are buying guns, Virginia simply doesn’t collect the data. No data, no federal intervention.

Lack of evidence to support the success or failures of our laws sells all citizens short. Sure, mental illness played a huge role in what lead Cho to commit the hideous act that he did. But what killed 33 people that day were bullets fired from a gun bought legally.

For the record, I am not one to vote along party lines. I vote for the people I believe will do a good job and represent the people. And to me, those don’t tend to be ones who mislead the public. As my grandmother always used to say, lying by omission is lying just the same.

There are an estimated 20.8 million uprooted persons worldwide. Among the many reasons one would flee their home, risking abuse, injury and often death, is to escape the dire situation they face were they to stay. Given the choice between watching your family raped, beaten tortured and killed at the hands of a known enemy vs gambling on humankind to intervene in your hour of need - what would you do?

Domestic and international conflict has led to a cottage industry of the movement of peoples across borders - a commodities service where the goods being shipped are babies, children, the sick and infirm, regular people driven from their homes and jobs, families and friends. They are rarely treated better than if they were chattel. Many die of dehydration and other easily avoidable situations.

Is is unfathomable the situation these people face. And when one comes across a story in the daily news cycle describing the latest in abuses - Somalis fleeing war being thrown to sharks off the coast of Yemen by smugglers - it is heartbreaking to think how so-called humankind is acting, once again, inhuman and unkind.

from CNN:

The victims are people “who are desperate to escape persecution, violence and poverty in the Horn of Africa,” U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said in a statement.

Passengers who resisted the smugglers were stabbed or beaten with wooden and steel clubs, then thrown overboard where some were attacked by sharks, the agency said it learned from survivors.

“Several recovered bodies showed signs of severe mutilation,” UNHCR said. “Survivors also reported that several Ethiopian women and at least one Somali were raped and abused by the smugglers during the voyage from Bosaso in Somalia’s Puntland region. Survivors also alleged that some Yemeni security forces confiscated their money once they reached shore.”