NEWS BREAK: Super Tuesday, 2008

This is Andrew Bast, reporting for the New York Inquirer ... At eleven o'clock on this mild, dark (unsurprisingly) Tuesday night, of the twenty-four states voting today, few can be decided for either Hillary Rodham Clinton or Barack Hussein Obama. Neither of the Democratic candidates' middle names are regularly mentioned. Coincidentally, that of the former is hardly (if at all?) mentioned on her website, and of the latter, Hussein pales to hope in Barack's speeches.

Ms. Clinton, in her home (?!) state of New York says on a stage that, All colors, all faiths, and all walks of life ... who aren't in the headlines but are part of America's story ... [waiting] ... tonight in record numbers ... [mention of tornadoes in voting states] ... but tonight is your night, America's night .. and California in a few more minutes ...

Live, the speech sounds conciliatory, yet the woman, as usual, displays her brilliance, politically calculated as it is.

Courtesy of veteran Tom Brokaw, it ought to be mentioned that the stock market dove today as low as it has in a single day in two years [note: fact-check that, because the AP says, it was the Dow's biggest percentage drop in almost a year]. This will be hardly mentioned in tomorrow's news.

To play fair game, the Republican race seems to be just as much up in arms, but any sensible voter today, including many Republicans, as the so-registered boutique firm patent lawyer I met tonight told me, is looking at Obama. The rest won't bother with venturing to the polls. Republican races that deserve attention are not presidential, they're at the state level. (Don't worry, I won't watch, either.) McCain.

Speaking of Barack Hussein Obama ... [10:30 ...]

[Apologies, caught watching Law & Order on channel nine.]

Rumors are aflutter as we approach midnight. The Democratic party allocates delegates according to the percentage of the popular vote, so despite the fact that Idaho was just this minute called for Barack Hussein Obama, even if I kept myself up past midnight and waited for the paper in the morning and then listened to the official accounts tomorrow, I still could very well possibly have no idea whose name will be on the ballot. So it goes.

After some broadcaster-negotiating, Obama goes on at 11:44 and soon riles his Chicago audience into raucous chants of, "USA! USA! USA," and, "Yes we can! Yes we can!" He talks of climate change and genocide. Of his former life as an organizer on the south side of Chicago. Somehow, he looks untired; his voice curls velvetly, in the way of Reagan's best. "We," teleologically as he goes, "are the ones we're waiting for."

Republican candidate Mitt Romney tonight described America's long slide down. A hell of a rhetorically powerful phrase, and frightening, if you read the papers. It sounds like Britain, and, on reflection, like much of the former colonial powers of Europe.

SUPERDELEGATES is the word, or phrase, or constituency that will now echo as an ominous echo in Plato's cave. Unfortunately, the rest of us live in a reflected reality. Electoral politics in the US, for some historical reason that strangely can't be eradicated, plays on elusive pockets of power. The electoral system, in the national election, would be a perfect example; the popular vote does not elect the president. Tonight, should Rodham and Hussein split the vote across the country, ultimately the decision for the Democratic nominee could end up with superdelegates, a group of political party insiders. Thus, the decision is taken away, once again. So it goes.

Oh, and I don't have cable.

[Photo, courtesies made, from TeeRish on flickr. Utility for political reporting? More than the ubiquitous images lately of either candidate.]