Is Tonight the Night?

Polls will close less than an hour in South Dakota. Polls will close at 10 EST in Montana.

As of writing this Sen. Obama is only 4 delegates away from clinching the nomination. Seeing that it is expected he will gain 15-18 pledged delegates tonight it is safe to say that he will be the presumptive nominee.

But what about Hillary? Is she conceding or not? The AP says so, but her camp denies it. However, what has been reported is this. At her speech tonight she was called some of her top backers and donors to be present. Any campaign staff member who is going home after the speech needs to get their own plane ticket. Her campaign won't pay for them. Additionally the Clinton campaign has asked their staffers to turn in their expense reports by the end of the week.

Perhaps the Clinton campaign wants to keep their conceding a surprise for the speech. Then again maybe she will press on and she certainly has every right to do so.

The AP has declared Obama the unofficial nominee.

Clinton apparently told a group of backers in a conference call that she is open to being Vice-President. Is that the best idea? In my opinion Obama should not pick Clinton, but rather someone who is from her side so to speak. If he does pick her I do believe that it can be a formidable ticket. I do foresee a very ugly smear campaign if they are a ticket.

Is that enough to ease over some Clinton backers? It may be. I believe that it will appeal to some of them, but not all of them. Certainly the more die-hard supporters will not be pleased. Geraldine Ferraro was on Fox and she did say that her being VP alone is not enough. She did not mention, or at least I did not catch anything pertaining to how Obama could win Ferraro over.

Both candidate's speeches tonight are expected to be the best either have given so far in the primary. I'm eagerly awaiting both. In a symbolic move Obama is having his speech Xcel Energy Center in Saint Paul, Minnesota where the GOP will nominate John McCain in September.

We cannot deny that the Democratic race this year has been groundbreaking. History was made this season. Major civil rights legislation wasn't signed until the '60s. Women's suffrage on a national scale did not occur until 1920.

Personally I would like the race to wrap up tonight so the Democratic Party can focus on beating the GOP in November. It is still way to early to cast any predictions to how that may go. Obama has issues he needs to overcome as does John McCain.

I have been volunteering for Obama since late January. I was one of the early members of Wilkes-Barre for Obama. I'm very proud of what we have accomplished. I look forward to working on this campaign as a volunteer.

In a few hours we will all see what happens on this historic night. It all started when Obama won his first state January 3rd 2008.

History, as always, is in the making.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/03/election.democrats/index.html