Throughout the Spring and into the Summer, the Obama campaign was assuring us of the inevitability of his nomination within the next twenty-four hours.

The Obama team urged us to do the math and insisted that further resistance was futile. In the weeks that followed, however, Hillary Clinton continued to rack up primary victories in state after state. With the finish line clearly in sight, Obama stumbled and struggled.

As events turned out, the nomination contest continued almost to the start of the Democratic National Convention. Relying upon arcane party rules and a brokered deal to deny full voting rights to disputed delegates from Florida and Michigan, two states that dared to advance their primaries in defiance of the well established tradition of the party promoting the primacy of Iowa and New Hampshire, unless Obama was awarded delegates from the two states that had been carried by Clinton (full disclosure: owing to the party rules controversy, Obama gambled and did not file as a candidate in Michigan).

Eventually, after decrying Clinton’s efforts to appeal to super delegates for their support in order to secure the nomination, Obama was forced to reverse himself, once again, and lobby the same super delegates for the necessary votes to put
him over the top.

Despite his early commanding lead, Obama could not win the game in regulation and had to play into overtime. For the first time in decades, Americans
were nearly treated to an actual convention roll call vote that was more than a mere formality.

Does any of this sound familiar to you? Didn’t we hear this all a few short months ago?

Now, Obama’s handlers are claiming that their candidate is bound to be a certain winner on election day. Just look at the polls! While you’re looking be
sure to ignore those other polls that show McCain creeping within striking distance of Obama. By the way, forget about voting on election day. Haven’t you
heard the election is all over. Obama has already won three and a half weeks before the polling places open their doors.

Thousands of new voter
registration cards collected by ACORN have turned the tide as Elvis Presley, Bugs Bunny
and Daffy Ducky have been added to the polling lists. If their registrations aren’t challenged successfully by the disenfranchising bullies in the
Republican party, these bona fide voters will all be requesting absentee ballots.

Will you just forget about William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn? Didn’t you know that Ayers is simply a kindly guy who lives in the neighborhood like Mister
Rogers. Pay no attention to ticking bombs attached to the trolley as it travels down the tracks to the Kingdom of Make Believe which is where we will be
sure to find Obama’s heretofore undisclosed academic transcripts, legal scholarship, medical records and real estate closing papers. Stop asking about that
birth certificate!

I told you it’s a deadlock cinch. Just like the Chicago Cubs were destined to win the World Series by virtue of being the best team in the National League. Los Angeles had to concede on account of their poorer regular season
record. It’s in the bag! We’re negotiating a major media buy. It’s over.

McCain must be punchy. He does not know when it is time to lay down. The old veteran thinks that he can stay on his feet and this will be a fifteen round
fight. What in the heck does Zogby know? What is a Zogby anyway? Is it like a bialy? Where can Axelrod get a good knish in Kenosha?

Let’s put a finish to this election cycle before the Federal Elections Commission completes its investigation of the foreign campaign contributions and
the checks from undisclosed donors. Hurry up, will you? I want to be out of here before Tony Rezko begins to sing from the Metropolitan Correction Center.

Do you still think that it would be inappropriate for the Reverend Jeremiah Wright or Reverend Michael Pfleger to lead the invocation on inaugural day?

Somewhere above the idle chatter of the mainstream media with their tingling extremities, I hear a television set playing a commercial with a quacking
duck. Yogi Berra is sitting in a barber’s chair and he puts down his newspaper which contains a headline prediction of an imminent Obama victory. Berra
mumbles “It’s like déjà vu all over again” as he throws the paper to the floor. As the scene fades, Berra adds “It ain’t over til it’s over.”

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Dan Kelley is a regular contributor to the Chicago Daily Observer