The real reason this race will continue: either candidate beats McCain

This race will go on regardless of the outcomes of Indiana and North Carolina on Tuesday. (Oh, and Guam on Saturday!)

The reason Hillary Clinton is battling to the death in the face of insurmountable odds is because she knows that a Democrat will beat McCain in November. Any Democrat. Forget the head-to-head polls, the state-by-state polls, the inane "electability" arguments six months out from the general election.

We could nominate Daffy Duck and he'd whip McCain's sorry, old ass.

No wonder Joe Trippi is crying in his beer today about not telling John Edwards to stay in the race until the convention...

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McCain is tied to the Good Ship W, the most unpopular president in the history of polling, and, probably in the history of our country.

The economy is crumbling, and the bad news for McCain (and all of us, really) is that it is likely to get worse before November. Iraq continues to be an epic disaster with U.S. casualties on the rise once again as the Iraqi army shirks, ducks and, flat-out, bails on its responsibilities.

McCain will get clobbered.

That's why Clinton is soldiering on. She knows that should Obama be the nominee, he is likely to be our president for eight years, at which time she'll be 68, a grizzled political veteran with years in the Senate behind her.

So we can put to rest the rather tin-foiled notion that she's hoping she can damage Obama enough that he loses to McCain so she can run again in 2012.

She knows it's all about now. This election. To be President of the United States with Democratic majorities in the House and the Senate for eight years.

And that is why Hillary Clinton will take this fight to the convention if she is permitted to do so by superdelegates. This is her only shot at the presidency, and she will not stop until she is made to stop.

So ignore the phony "electability" arguments. They're hollow -- window dressing designed to obscure the fact that the next Democratic nominee will be president.

But McCain? He's a poor candidate in a very, very bad year for Republicans, tethered to the most unpopular man in America. He's going nowhere but down -- to a Bob Dole-like defeat. He hasn't been touched yet (because we're too busy with our internecine warfare), and he's still losing.

The sooner we get to a nominee, the better. But, please, spare me the phony "electability" arguments and the equally phony "Obama-will-be-swiftboated-using-Wright" garbage. (And who's kidding who? Clinton would be just as subject to swiftboating as Obama. It's just that, right now, Republicans have done the math and see Obama as the nominee. They know how to count on the other side.)

Please, superdelegates, at some point put a stop to this madness so we can move on to burying McCain. The only way we screw this up is to take the fight to the convention. God forbid...

Thanks.