All Down Hillary

Well, to take a page from New York Governor David Paterson, Hillary may have just have won the endorsement of America’s blue-chip lobbyists. Air America announced Thursday that afternoon host Randi Rhodes has been suspended for calling Hillary Clinton “a big f*cking whore” (and Geraldine Ferraro, though she didn’t refer to Ferraro as “big”) at an Air America-related event in San Francisco. Not that Randi Rhodes spitting such an epithet carries the same impact as if it came from, say, Oprah Winfrey, but it’s just another in a flurry of signs that the end of days is nigh for the Clinton campaign.

Barack Obama not only could not be reached for comment, but made sure to stay three time zones away from Ms. Rhodes’ remarks.

Whether Randi Rhodes deserved to be suspended for a personal comment off the air is a debate for another day. In truth, I’m sure you could count on more than a few hands the number of Americans who agree with her, and I would very nearly offer to donate a kidney to a stranger if I could hear “big f*cking whore” and “I’m Barack Obama, and I approved this ad” within the same 30-second time block.

And, context being everything, the mainstream media’s cut-and-dried representation of Ms. Rhodes’ pejorative comment is in fact an insult to plus-sized sex workers everywhere. Moreover, her remark could have been just as if not more applicable to Senator McCain.

But news of that broadside wasn’t the worst thing that happened to Hillary over the last few days. We might not have Hillary Clinton to kick around too much longer. March fundraising numbers showed Obama trounced Hillary two-to-one in contributions, $40 million to her $20 million, and in just three months he’s taken in a total of $131 million from 1.3 million donors. He is outspending her in Pennsylvania ad buys four-to-one, and polls show Hillary with a dwindling lead in the Keystone State. Pennsylvania Congressman and Hillary superdelegate John Murtha says that Hillary needs to not only win Pennsylvania in a clobbering fashion, but needs to finish the nominating race with a lead in the popular vote if she can make any claim at all to the Democratic nomination.

A state away in New Jersey, another Clinton superdelegate, Governor Jon Corzine, asserts that he “reserves the right to switch my vote” if Hillary doesn’t come out ahead in the popular vote. Former President and superdelegate Jimmy Carter hinted that he may be declaring soon for Obama. Just an hour ago, the Los Angeles Times reported that Obama had narrowed Clinton’s superdelegate lead to just 30, down from 87 in early February. Obama received the endorsement of Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal, Michigan Senator Amy Clobuchar, and Montana’s John Melcher. This is the only leverage the Democrats have (all due respect to the toothless posturing of DNC Chairman Howard Dean. He means well).

This is all Inside Hockey to most Americans, but it’s almost Bastille Day for Democrats who have felt their chances for victory in November are languishing under the yoke of the obstinate and poisonous Clinton Candidacy. We’re not quite thank God almighty free at last, but we’re getting close.