I still don't get it

I've been watching the primary returns for a few hours now. Well, except for about an hour after supper when I was asleep with an attractive man and a yorkie on the couch. But I don't believe I missed much.

I'm not really understanding where this process is heading. It looks, whenever the numbers are broken down by county and occupation and income level, etc, that Sen. Obama is winning hardcore democrats and black folks, and Sen. Clinton is winning centrist democrats and older people.

This runs me straight into what's always been my problem with the primary system - the people picking the party's nominee are the sort of people who bother to register with a party affiliation. And they may end up picking a candidate who best represents the textbook party values, but I don't know they end up picking a candidate most appealing to the entire electorate. And ultimately, that is the point.

So it looks to me like the democrats are on their way to nominating Sen. Obama, but I can really see the other argument - that he's not winning in the places and ways that the democratic candidate will have to win in November to carry the general election.

As I've said before, I'm inclined to like Sen. McCain, and so this is academic right now. I'm also apparently immune to the Obama magic, so I really don't get the wild-eyed college students. It simply seems to me that we're letting a weird primary system enable fuzzy idealists to nominate someone who has no business vying to head our government, and who is not going to do well this fall.