Down to the wire

Is it just me or does this presidential campaign seem like it is running interminably long? Perhaps by this time tomorrow night we will have an insight into the final players. Perhaps not. All I know is that a win for Clinton in Ohio and Texas is a must. That's not news to her or her campaign and it's probably not news to you. To go for a big victory tomorrow night, Obama only needs to pull off a win in either of those two states. To go for a kill, he needs to capture both states and I believe it's all over. Then, perhaps, we can get down to the serious issues of deciding running mates. I've already mentioned Michael Bloomfield as a potential running mate for McCain. Even though Bloomberg announced he was not interested in running for president last week, he did not touch on vice-president. What about Ron Paul? Would he help shore up the GOP team with a more conservative tilt? Would Paul be interested in working with McCain or would he decline the honor? And on the Democratic side, who would be a good choice to run along side of Obama? How about someone to pull the party ranks together with Clinton? Is there anyone out there who could capture the imagination of the party faithful? If Obama does pull off a victory, would he benefit from a Southern Democrat like John Edwards to take the second slot? Or would he be well-advised to pick up a Southwestern figure like Bill Richardson to combat the influence of Arizona's McCain? Hmmm....
Signing petitions: One of the items I touched on briefly in the four part series I published last month (Of hoaxes, scams, and spam...), was on Internet petitions. These are well-meaning attempts at stirring people into action to let "authorities" know of your opinion. Quite often the petitions are aimed at Congress, but I must tell you that Representatives and Senators tend to discount e-mail as opposed to actual letters written in longhand or printed through a word processor. Putting a stamp on correspondence upgrades its importance to Congressional staffers. The most recent petition I received is aimed at stopping Microsoft from stopping its support of Windows XP slated to end at the end of June, 2008. Let me caution everyone. Microsoft is fully intending on supporting the Vista operating system and doesn't care how many petitions it receives. While they may have acknowledged that Vista had its problems initially by continuing support for XP over the last year and a half, the fact is that they have already rolled out a service pack for Vista and that will take care of the lion's share of problems associated with Vista. If you don't like it, don't send petitions. Think about getting a Macintosh. I did.