The Real Super Tuesday?

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that tomorrow may turn out to be the real "super Tuesday", with two decisions of great moment that could happen tomorrow. The first, of course, is the presidential primaries in Texas and Ohio (as well as Vermont and Rhode Island). Texas and Ohio have been called Hillary Clinton's "firewalls", and after being fought to a draw on February's "super Tuesday", and then suffering 11 consecutive losses since then, the conventional wisdom is that she needs to win both Texas and Ohio in order to have any hope of continuing. The Clinton campaign, in a seemingly inexorable retreating spin, keeps redefining success downward. The last I heard is that she'll claim victory if she wins the popular vote in Texas, even if she loses in the delegate count. My best hope is that Obama can win Texas, not only in delegates, but in popular vote. As Clinton's campaign slides into Huckabee territory, will she have the good grace to concede, as the seemingly valedictory notes of her close in the Austin debate hinted? Or will she drag us through to June in Puerto Rico, clutching at uglier tactics to get her way? The math is ever more daunting. And while Huckabee majored in miracles, Clinton majored in law, so her approach to surmount mathematical improbability may be to mount a lawsuit against the Texas Democratic Party over how delegates are selected. I'm sincerely hoping tomorrow's outcomes preclude all that.

The other decision of great moment happening tomorrow will take place in a San Francisco courtroom, where the California Supreme Court will hear the appeal of the consolidated gay marriage cases. Here I'm hoping that the Supreme Court will see fit to uphold the excellent opinion of the trial court judge, in unequivocally smacking down denial of gay marriage as unconstitutional. (That opinion from a Catholic Republican judge, mind you.) Tomorrow, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the long-awaited case. Their opinion is expected to be announced within 90 days. If they do the right thing, my husband and I might celebrate our wedding anniversary in July by getting a bonafide California marriage license. (Under the circumstances, the seventh anniversary will be paper.) Equality California noted that the case was one of the most heavily briefed of any case in the court's history, with 20 counties and municipalities filing briefs in support. They also noted that 2008 was the 60th anniversary of Perez v. Sharp, when the California Supreme Court lead the nation by two decades in striking down its miscegenation laws as unconstitutional. Let's hope they continue that honorable distinction of being leaders in justice.