Even though I’ve come to loathe this primary, or at least the internet version of it, I was hoping this thing would make it to Pennsylvania. It’s a bit selfish, but I’d like, for once in my life, to vote in a Democratic primary before the election is already decided. It doesn’t look like it’s going to happen.

In Ohio, Clinton leads Obama in the new poll by 50 percent to 43 percent, a significant but tenuous advantage given the shifts that have taken place in advance of previous primaries as candidates intensified their campaigns. In Texas, the race is about even, with Clinton at 48 percent and Obama at 47 percent.

In recent contests in Virginia and Wisconsin, Obama cut into Clinton’s coalition, a potentially significant change in the Democratic race. At this point in Ohio and Texas, Clinton is doing better than she did in those states among her more reliable voters, but she has yet to make deep inroads into Obama’s core supporters.

The Post-ABC News polls show Clinton with solid support from white women, seniors, voters with less education and those with lower incomes in both Ohio and Texas. She holds a big lead among Hispanics in Texas. Obama has large advantages among independents, African Americans and better-educated voters in both states.

Clinton advisers have expressed optimism about her prospects in the two contests, but the new polls suggest that the momentum Obama achieved in his string of victories has turned both into true battlegrounds. Clinton’s husband, former president Bill Clinton, said this week that she must win Texas and Ohio to keep her candidacy viable.

The polling is awful for Senator Clinton. She needs to win huge, but as it stands she’ll be lucky if she gets even a small win in either of them. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t want Clinton to win. I just wanted the loss to come a little later; maybe with a concession speech broadcast live from the Super 8 in Altoona. A kid can dream, can’t he?

Anyway, the last week or so have been fun on this site, haven’t they? Primaries really do make the political intertubes a stupider place to be. One of the fundamental strengths of some of the early liberal political blogs, like Suburban Guerrilla and Eschaton, is that they focused so heavily and so brutally on the absurdities that exist in the utter shit that the corporate media feeds us in heavy doses on a daily basis. They continue to do so. That focus, however, becomes uncomfortable when the corporate media takes a shine to a candidate within our own party.

Listen, I’m behind Senator Obama. I want him to win. I’m a bit ashamed to admit that I haven’t done a thing for his campaign other than wear a PA for Obama button on my jacket. Take that for what it is. It doesn’t change the fact that Senator Clinton’s media coverage has been godawful. Clinton rules still apply. It doesn’t change the fact that Obama’s portrayal in the media has been more flattering. He is not yet entirely subject to the Clinton rules of journalism. This will change.

I forgot what my point was. Use this space to discuss kittens.