OK, so I lied

I promised no more politics but tonight I saw an interesting map/graphic spreadsheet on CNN. According to that map, because of proportional representation, if Governor Huckabee wins every state from now on by 55%-45%, Senator McCain still ends up with more than enough delegates to win the nomination.

Conversely, if Senator Obama wins every remaining state 55%-45% he won't have a winning majority. Neither would Senator Clinton if she wins the rest. Only a series of runaway wins can lead to either candidate going to Denver with the nomination already in hand.

Which means that the Republican convention will open with McCain already the nominee. And the Democratic convention will probably open without a nominee.

That creates the prospect of a desperate fight over seating the Florida and Michigan delegations, protracted and visibly corrupt deal-making for the super-delegates, and, of course, litigation.

The nation's attention will be on the struggles among the Democrats during the convention, which will dirty up their nomination as the product of a corrupt deal. The Democratic convention is scheduled to open in Denver on August 25th and close on August 28th.

McCain will run around the country with no one laying a glove on him for months. McCain will continue spouting the same twaddle I heard yet again tonight. He argued that what the most unfairly stacked-in-favor-of-the-rich tax system of any developed country needs, is more tax cuts for the rich. He has the gall to run against Washington apparently on the theory the voters can't remember that his party has had the White House the past 8 years, and that two years ago the voters threw his party out of power after 14 years of controlling Congress. He is running against Washington in spite of being one of the main rascals at the center of it for more than 30 years. And getting away with it.

Jon Stewart of 'The Daily Show' has wondered aloud how the Democrats would find a way to yet again snatch defeat from the jaws of certain victory. They seem to have found it.