Hillary drops out; may accept McCain’s offer

COLUMBUS: Offer? What offer? Why, the offer to be his Vice-President.

Of course, if she doesn’t take him up on it by the end of the day, it’ll be just another April Fools joke.

Senator Obama is ahead in the polls and some newspaper writers think Senator Clinton ought to concede. Anybody getting paid by the day to talk politics, or write about it, wants her to stay. Now on the other hand, if you agreed for a fixed sum to cover the Democrat campaign until there’s only one candidate standing, why then you’ve got a gripe coming. You can send your gripe directly to the Democrats’ head honcho, if you can figure out who it is. For entertainment, Mr. Ziegfeld himself couldn’t have put on a better production, and these Democrat Follies are running almost as long as most of his did.

Only thing that’s gone according to plan is the big college basketball tournament. Out of all the teams in the country, the men in charge said, “These four are the best ones.” Then those teams heard the news and went out, played the games and proved ’em right. So now you’ve got Memphis, Kansas, North Carolina and UCLA to choose from. Put your money down, and by next Monday night you’ll know if you picked the right one.

Do you wonder if this could work for the Democrats? Well, did you notice that after the field narrowed to four, it’ll only be a week or so till we know the winner. Then all the shouting and celebration can begin without delay. But here we have the Democrats down to two, and they spread the final playoffs over two months. Even after the game ends in June, they’ll wait two more months to declare the winner.

Here’s my suggestion: as soon as the last primary is counted, hold the convention the next weekend. If Denver won’t go along with the switch, then find another town with empty hotels. Maybe New Orleans. That would put the Democrats back in the race with a two-month head start on McCain. That’s a big lead even if Hillary ain’t running with him. No foolin’.

Historic quote from Will Rogers:

[Will wrote 18 daily articles on the 1924 Democratic Convention (for a fixed sum), from June 23 to this one on July 10.]

“Who said miracles don’t happen? Didn’t the Democratic National Convention nominate a man at last? This should bring more people back to religion than any other one thing. It has been a demonstration of faith, because, after all, God is good.

It is generally conceded and understood that a comedian has no sense, and that we are only to make people laugh and not to think. About six days ago (seems like six years) I devoted a whole article to my prediction of John W. Davis’s nomination.”