Another Tuesday, Another Primary: Election Fatigue Sets In

Another Tuesday, another election. The never-ending Democratic primary rolls on, seemingly without resolution or an end in sight. Oh, I know, if worse comes to worse, it will all get settled with a showdown in Denver. But damn, I'm tired -- and I love politics. I really do. But get on with it already! And really, this is not to diss West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon, Montana, or South Dakota, or any of the other few remaining primary states and territories -- I know you want to vote as well. But really, this needs to be decided once and for all. For pity's sake!

So now what? Well, it seems that it's all up to Hillary. For someone who is not actually leading the race, she sure seems to be in the driver's seat at the moment. So far, Clinton appears to be impervious to any calls to back out of the race -- hell, such calls seem to make her more determined to stubbornly press on than ever (not a bad trait, I'll give you that -- would be very useful in a Senate Majority Leader, don't ya think?).

And, that much desired cabal of party elders has not emerged to wrestle the race back onto the rails and get the party unified behind one banner. It's just ugly, getting uglier, and -- to use a term my mom won't like, but my brother taught me -- it's verging on a clusterfuck. It's really not looking like the end is near, because in her speech after the Indiana primary on Tuesday, Clinton said: "I need your help to continue our journey." And then urged people to go contribute at her website. MSNBC's Chris Matthews called her address "charming."

The pundits have said all that can be said, ad nauseum, and employed just about every canned phrase more times that I can count -- though I gotta give it to Matthews, that was the first time I'd heard "charming." We've had distractions, distortions, and missteps. We've had smear tactics and empty rhetoric and outright pandering. We've had must-win, do or die contests, and unsuspecting superdelegates that have been stalked within an inch of their lives. Unfortunately, we've not had so much emphasis on actual issues and policy solutions. I have missed that -- call me crazy.

So, I guess we keep grinding along. Or do we? But I am tired, fatigued. I want closure, resolution, before primary-related PTSD sets in. I want to be clearheaded enough to focus on the real adversary -- the Maverick and his DoubleTalk Express. And I'd like it to happen without ripping apart the Democratic Party -- and our eventual nominee -- in the process.



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