will keep her afloat for now.

But even with her wins in the Ohio and Texas primaries, the fact remains that Obama is still ahead in the popular vote and still ahead in the pledged delegate count.

Much as the I’ve been loving the orgy of political participation inspired by the Clinton-Obama duel, my overriding hope (yes, I can. . . hope) was for Obama to put the nomination to bed last night. That’s because he’s my choice.

But people are passionately fired up on both sides and nobody’s stepping back from the line in the sand. People want their say, so now Wisconsin, Mississippi and Pennsylvania are gonna get theirs.

We seem to be moving inexorably toward an electoral stalemate in the Democratic nominating process.  Which leads to some speculation:

The Obama-Clinton Dynamic Duo Dream Team Dream Ticket

Hillary’s making coy suggestions that the party could be moving toward a combo ticket with her name at the top:

“That may , you know, be where this is headed , but of course we have to decide who’s on top of the ticket. . . I think the people of Ohio very clearly said it should be me.” (From CBS’ “The Early Show”)

This is a somewhat clumsy psycho-political maneuver to use the Ohio victory to give overdog Obama the underdog status. But no one’s biting in the Obama camp. Maybe because the guy who’s got the popular vote and the delegate count is thinking he should be at the top of the ticket?

And maybe isn’t so warm to the idea of Vice-President(s) Clinton breathing down his neck?

12:25PM Not-So-Breaking News

President George just endorsed former foe McCain as his party’s nominee.

The headline on CNN is “McCain to get push from Bush.”

Predictable yakkety-yak says this is good for McCain because Bush has the backing of the more conservative Republicans who don’t trust or like McCain. But there are a hell of lot more Americans who don’t like Bush than do right now. And McCain looked, shall we say, unenthusiastic? standing at the podium with Cowboy George.

Anyway, whether they like McCain or not, I’d guess that the deeply conservative faction of the Republican party will be stampeding to the polls in November if for no other reason than to try to keep Obama or Clinton or Obama/Clinton out of the White House.