Chicago, Athens, and Jerusalem

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are neck-and-neck in the race for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, so the 33 pledged delegates at stake in today’s Mississippi primary are crucial. Unless Hillary can hold Obama to a small lead (i.e., he wins <5 delegates more than she does), she will lose some of the momentum from her strong showing last week, it will be that much harder for her to rally her supporters for the six weeks of campaigning until the huge Pennsylvania primary on April 22.

I don’t want to predict who will win the Democrat’s nomination, because-despite the affirmations of Obama supporters (and Andrew Sullivan)-Hillary can still pull through and take the nomination at the convention, especially if she keeps her lead in Pennsylvania and finishes the primaries with a higher popular vote.

One thing is certain-anyone who nine (or even six) months ago said or thought that the Mississippi primary would receive wall-to-wall media coverage (in between tidbits from the Spitzer story) was smoking something.

Speaking of which, here’s the first really good song about Mississippi I could think of (it’s a pretty snazzy tune):