Okay.  I’ll lay it on the line here.  I’ve been saying it and thinking it for the last month or so and now I’m going to put it in my blog for future proof:  Barack Obama will beat Hillary Clinton to become the Democratic nominee.  Furthermore, Obama will beat John McCain in the general election to become the first black President of the United States.

In the last few weeks, Hillary’s campaign has turned from blunt attacks from various “celebrities” to the kind of name-calling, kicking and scratching campaigns usually waged in small home-town elections.  In the last day or so, I noticed an interesting shift from Hillary when she gave the interview to the press aboard her campaign plane.  They say she sipped on a beer out of a plastic cup (insert your own Arkansas jokes here) and talked about uniting the party.  One reporter noted that she was unusually calm.  After reading about it, I wonder if she has seen the writing on the wall.  She obviously has seen the numbers and knows that, barring a miracle, she cannot take enough delegates to surpass Barak in pledged delegates.  And the super delegates will never give her the nomination and reverse the outcome of the votes of the people.  They would call her a Republican!!

With all that’s going on, I don’t expect Hillary to stick it out until the convention.  I think that if she doesn’t win big in Pennsylvania, Hillary will admit defeat and call for the uniting of the Democratic party against the “Republican machine”.

Mark