She gave a great political speech tonight at the Democratic National Convention and reminded her supporters that this election is bigger than them and they need to get over themselves. If these guys actually manage to follow through, the GOP is in big trouble in November.

When Barack Obama announced his candidacy for the Presidency in February of last year on the steps of the Old Illinois State Capitol, I was the last person who thought he would be back today as the presumptive nominee and Delaware Senator Joe Biden at his side as a Vice-Presidential pick.

I figured the Hillary Clinton juggernaut would have claimed victory or Democrats would have give John Edwards a shot.  I mean let’s face it, Barack’s a nice guy, but President?  Whatever. But somehow that guy who is my older sister’s neighbor in Hyde Park got the nod. I will give him credit for doing it the old fashioned way, being more organized than his opponents.

Now with Biden at his side, the presumptive nominee moves into new territory as well as new challenges. Although Biden helps with foreign policy and experience credentials, Barack is really going to need him to drive home a message that can connect with working class white voters.

Expect the two to tie John McCain to George W. Bush at every opportune moment while driving a message that the guy with a funny sounding name and conspiracy theories about his place of birth is really one of us.

They had more than 15,000 (predominately white) people show up today.  Not bad, but they’ll get bigger props if they can do it in other places.

During his afternoon speech Biden repeatedly hit on themes that his working class story while different from Barack’s shared a common theme; rising up from small roots, facing challenges and achieving the American dream.

Can Biden do it?  We’ll see.  The two are on their way to Iowa, Wisconsin, Missouri, Montana and Colorado.

   I have come to the conclusion that when it comes to presidential politics, Hillary Clinton is like a party guest who has overstayed her welcome and needs to go home.
   This Saturday, the Democratic National Credentials Committee will decide what to do with the delegates from Florida and Michigan, the two states which moved their primaries and were punished as a result.     
    Already the democrats’ legal team says the most that could happen is that half the delegates from both states get seated. 
    Hillary says all the votes should count. But that’s like saying someone who robbed a bank should get to keep some of the money.
    The states of Michigan and Florida broke the rules and cut in line in front of a lot of other states, and they should have to live with those consequences.
   I also think it’s funny that Clinton keeps saying she leads in popular vote if you count the two states.  She conviently leaves out the fact that Obama did not campaign in Florida and wasn’t on the ballot in Michigan. 
  And she also leaves out votes in caucus states like Iowa, Nevada, Maine and Washington.

  For Cinton to say she’s the front runner is like my son telling me he was valedictorian in summer school. I told him to go somewhere and sit his rear end down.
  Maybe the democrats will tell that to Hillary.

I get it. Three weeks have passed since Indiana’s historical primary election. The rallies are over. The big-name surrogates are gone. The Clinton and Obama campaigns no longer have to remember that we’re “Hoosiers,” not “Indianans.”

It’s tough to be loved and left.

That, however, does not excuse this overblown story about Hillary Clinton’s failure to pay $55,000 in campaign bills to Indiana University.

I consider myself fiscally responsible, but I bet there’s at least one bill on my counter that’s been sitting there for a few weeks. It’s not overdue. I just haven’t paid it yet.

Note: I am not running for President of the United States of America.

(I fully realize I have created an opening for the people out there who always pay their bills as soon as they arrive and who just looooooove to talk about that practice like it’s somehow going to get them one rung higher on the ladder to Personal Finance Heaven. Whatever. Saint Peter doesn’t care, and neither do I.)

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating not paying your bills, but I do think we might be imposing a standard here by which many of us do not personally abide.

Now, if another few weeks go by, and the good folks at my alma mater still don’t have a check in hand from the Clinton campaign, by all means, raise the roof.

This, however, seems like a textbook example of premature adjudication in the court of public opinion, most likely the result of a slow, pre-holiday news week and a touch of post-primary yearning to nab a little more of that addictive national limelight.

  It’s over for Hillary Clinton.

  Yes, she won Indiana yesterday, coming from behind after early polls showed her losing, and even though many of the state’s Democrats live in Barack Obama’s home TV market.  But she didn’t do what she needed to do, because she lost North Carolina.

  Going into yesterday, Clinton was like a baseball team playing a doubleheader against the team it’s chasing in the standings during the last week of the season.  The team that’s behind has to sweep the doubleheader.  It can’t split.  In a split, the standings don’t change, and you get that much closer to the end of the season.  Furthermore, in baseball, all games are equal.  In politics, they aren’t.  Much as it pains Hoosiers to hear this, North Carolina has become a bigger state, with more people and more convention delegates.  By winning it, Obama won the bigger prize.

  No, Clinton won’t give up.  It isn’t in her DNA or her husband’s.  They’ll continue calling superdelegates at all hours of the day and night.  But there aren’t enough left to make a difference.  Clinton would have to get an unrealistic number of the remaining delegates to win the nomination, and splitting yesterday doesn’t give her any unrefutable arguments that they should all vote for her.