Remember the last eight years? Yeah, sure you do. Remember how every time you saw George W. Bush talk you thought to yourself "my god, this man is an idiot." Sarah Palin did the impossible tonight. She made George W. Bush look presidential. Think about that one.

U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky (IN-1) has announced his support for Barack Obama this morning. Who else thinks a whole bunch will be announced today to offset WV?

OK. It's over. We all get it. Except for Hillary. For Obama to even acknowledge her anymore at this point is useless--a waste of money and breath. From this point forward, he's running against McCain and he should put all his efforts toward that end. We don't need Hillary to accept that he's the nominee. We all know it.

Start putting the national ads together and quit wasting any more time with this foolish person, Barack. It's time to put an end to The Audacity of Hopelessness.

In today's NWI Times, my mayor, Mayor Thomas McDermott, Jr. of Hammond, IN, famous(?) for being pictured standing next to Hillary in all the infamous Crown Royal shots pics slammed the process of some neighboring Gary, IN schools busing voting-age kids to the county's early voting center.

"To me it seems like an orchestrated effort on behalf of the Obama campaign to take kids who should be in school learning to read and write, instead giving them a day off and telling them to vote for Obama."

"When you corral kids together and ship them to polling places, it's completely unethical. I think Sen. Obama should distance himself from this type of behavior," McDermott said.

Indiana's primary, as most of you know, is May 6. For the first time ever, new election laws permit early voting in Indiana at several central locations in each county. In the past, voters who could not make it to the polls on election day had to get absentee ballots, and they needed to justify their need on the application.

The problem here is Mayor McDermott's implication that the primarily black kids are being told to vote for Obama. If they aren't being told whom to vote for, then his implication is even more insidious. Comments on the online article overwhelmingly accuse McDermott of racial bias here.

McDermott has been pushing very hard for Hillary in NW Indiana. He's one of a number of local democratic mayors endorsing Sen. Clinton, but he's the guy you see in every photo or video clip when Hill's in the area.

I see no problem with getting the youth involved in early voting, regardless of who they will support. In heavily populated counties, there are hundreds of voting precincts so it is unlikely that any one student's polling place is in or near his or her school. To come out so strongly against getting the young voters involved, voters who lean heavily democratic in this area, is antithetical to the ideals of the democratic party anyway. Not surprising coming from a mayor who switched parties in 2003 to run as a Democrat when he realized he could not win as a Republican.

When people talk about Pennsylvania, a state Hillary was expected to win, had a nearly 30 point polling lead a month ago that dwindled to 5, that she actually won by 9, here is what you need to tell them. Because the mainstream media won't.   As of today, the pledged delegate counts are 1487 for Obama and 1331 for Hillary. Superdels already decided: 232 Obama, 255 Hillary Total estimated delegates as of today: 1719 Obama, 1586 Hillary.   It takes 2024 delegates to get the nomination.   Here are the remaining races, conservative (in Obama's favor) estimates of the votes, and the delegates awarded.   Guam, 4 delegates, 2 each (with only 4 delegates, wide margins will still split them 2/2) NC: Obama 54% (65), Clinton 46% (50) IN: Obama 43% (31), Clinton 57% (41) WV: Obama 43% (12), Clinton 57% (16) KY: Obama 43% (23), Clinton 57% (28) OR: Obama 52% (27), Clinton 48% (25) MT: Obama 54% (8), Clinton 46% (8) SD: Obama 52% (8), Clinton 48% (7) PR: Obama 42% (23), Clinton 58% (32)   So that would place the delegate totals (including the pledged and supers that have declared to date) at:   Obama 1915, Clinton 1798   The remaining uncommitted 308 superdelegates will need to decide this.   If Hillary receives 60% of them (unlikely, since Obama will have the lead in pledged delegates), that will put the totals at:   Obama 2038, Clinton 1983   In fact, Hillary will need a full 74% of the remaining uncommitted superdelegates to reach the 2024 number. The number is likely more than that since I was very conservative in predictions of the remaining races.   All the stuff on this page above this line can be summarized as such:   Obama has already won the nomination.