With all this news about the primaries, and with all the buzz about the "accelerated" primary season, I was getting all excited about my first serious primary as a Democrat. So when is Pennsylvania's primary? April 27th, same as always. What the hell?

California, Alaska, Hawaii and the Pacific Northwest are screwed on Election night by their placement several time-zones away from the electoral center of the country, in Eastern and Central. In decisive contests, the election is over before some West-Coasters can even get to the polls. Pennsylvania is self-screwed by the dinosaurs of our party committees, who didn't scramble for the top of the calendar with the rest of the "Feiler Faster" crowd. While it doesn't seem as if the nomination will be sewn up by April 27th, there's a pretty damn good chance that your and my first choices will have been driven out of competition by then.

Last cycle, when I was a liberal Republican, McCain had pretty much thrown in the towel by the time I had a chance to vote in the Pennsylvania primary. This cycle, it seems as if only Lieberman's stubborn intractability will make it possible for me to throw my vote away on a doomed protest candidate.