Quotes From Around Yon Blogosphere

So onward they shall slog across the electoral landscape, like a pair of prison escapees joined at the wrist by handcuffs, each yearning and scheming to be free of the other, and we still don't know how this movie will end. Rumor now has it that they're fixing to hole up for six long weeks in Pennsylvania.

-- DICK POLMAN

2,833,000 Texans voted for John Kerry in the 2004 general election, but 2,857,000 people voted in last night's Democratic primary.

-- MATTHEW YGLESIAS

[T]he high turnout has exposed the weakness in the voting system. In state after state, there has been chaos at the polls because no one was prepared to deal with voters actually showing up. We need to address this shortcoming and repair it somehow before November.

-- LIBBY

It's unclear how the Democratic campaign will end. But that's fine. Nearly a third of the 50 states have yet to hold a nominating contest. Before they do, we'd like to hear fewer character attacks and a lot more discussion of the nation's many problems after nearly eight years of failed Republican rule. That is the Democrats' comparative advantage, they should start to use it now.

-- THE NEW YORK TIMES

I already hate being a Democrat. The other party is united around a doddering old warmonger who they swore just a few weeks ago they would never vote for, and the Democrats are busy tearing the party apart from the inside out so that we can continue the 28 year old Bush/Clinton dynasty.

-- JOHN COLE

Did Rush [Limbaugh] win it for Hillary? I'm going to guess no, for the simple reason that a man who couldn't sway enough conservatives to tip close primaries from John McCain to Mitt Romney probably isn’t capable of getting them excited about Hillary Clinton. But just because Rush's fingerprints aren't on it doesn’t mean something didn't happen last night.

-- ALLAHPUNDIT

If he wants to end it sooner than later, Barack Obama should announce now that he intends to ask Hillary Clinton to share the Democratic ticket with him.

-- ROBERT STEIN

That’s right [Glenn Beck] …you have a religious leader on your show who has spouted off such crazy, hate-filled rhetoric and is endorsing the other party’s candidate, and the thing foremost on Beck’s mind (such as it can charitably be called) is whether Rev. “End Times” Hagee envisions a Democratic candidate as the fulfillment of the prophecy of the Apocalypse. Nice to see him contributing to the national dialogue in such an uplifting way, isn’t it?

-- NICOLE BELLE

[Mike] Huckabee inspired a bloc of voters who saw themselves as religiously conservative but not necessarily angry, and I'm glad they've joined in this well-attended election cycle.

-- CLAIRE HOFFMAN

For some reason, just about everyone . . . seems to be saying that Clinton won with "negative advertising." I’m not seeing it. In the world of negative political advertisements, putting up an ad saying "your kids will be safer if I’m in charge" has got to be one of the most un-negative negative messages I've ever seen. No accusations of dishonesty or malfeasance. No mention of the opponent at all. Just a message that experience as a world leader matters.

-- DEAN ESMAY

I'm not especially interested in God and religion talk from politicians because I'm not interested in God and religion talk. But as long as it isn't exclusionary or suggest some kind of exceptionalism it doesn't bother me.

-- ATRIOS

"Rezko" is the Whitewater of the Obama campaign. It's almost impossible now to find an article or news account about Obama that doesn't include some dark reference to the "Rezko" affair, always with the suggestion or even overt claim that it's reflective of some serious vulnerability, some suggestion of wrongdoing and corruption. But what is it? The reporters throwing the word around quite plainly have no idea.

-- GLENN GREENWALD

With Obama saying the hour is upon us to elect a black man and Hillary saying the hour is upon us to elect a woman, the Democratic primary has become the ultimate nightmare of liberal identity politics. All the victimizations go tripping over each other and colliding, a competition of historical guilts.

-- MAUREEN DOWD

Enough with all the whining. Also enough with all the smack talk about how there must be something seriously wrong with Hillary/Obama as a candidate or s/he would have been able to close the deal by now. Horsefeathers. This isn't a primary in which Democratic voters are having a hard time making up their minds because both candidates are so disappointing. That's what's happening with the other team. Democrats' problem is that they have two candidates who are firing up the electorate, as seen in the consistently high turnout at the polls and the jaw-dropping fund-raising figures. ($30 million and $50 million in just one month? John McCain would kill for that kind of trouble.)

--MICHELLE COTTLE

Never, ever under-estimate the ability of the Democratic party to screw it up. They should have won this election easily. Now, the odds clearly favor McCain. And if it's him versus the Clintons, after all they have revealed about themselves in this primary season, many, many Independents will not be particularly torn.

-- ANDREW SULLIVAN

Meet Pennsylvania, the new Florida. Also known as "Pennsyl-tucky," "Philadelphia at one end, Pittsburgh at the other, and Alabama in between." Sometimes along around next month, our Eagles fans and Amish will choose your next president.

-- CALLIMACHUS

Cartoon by Ben Sargent/Universal Press Syndicate