Opinion: Clinton and Obama may be tired, but the public isn’t

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

The surprisingly prolonged Democratic presidential race may have become as much a battle against fatigue and exhaustion as each other for Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and their top staffers these days, but the contest continues to exhilarate segments of the body politic as it moves from state to state.

Consider:

The Associated Press reports that ‘Pennsylvanians are rushing in record numbers to sign up as Democrats so they can vote’ in the state’s April 22 primary. (As we’ve noted previously, Monday is the deadline for state residents to sign up as Democrats for a faceoff that is closed to non-party members.)

The AP story (available here) found that since January, more than 100,000 Pennsylvanians who had not been registered to vote now are. Also during that time, more than 68,000 who were registered switched affiliation to one of the major parties -- with the vast majority flipping from Republican to Democratic.

Meanwhile, in Montana -- site of a June 3 primary that now will mean something -- it took all of about 15 minutes earlier this week to sell out 2,400 bleacher seats in the auditorium where a state Democratic dinner will be headlined by Obama and Clinton.

The 1,000 seats on the floor of the facility in Butte long ago were grabbed up, according to a story in the Missoulian. The newspaper also reported that 99% of the bleacher ducats ‘were sold to Montana residents, with each person buying an average of 3.8 tickets.’

Could it be that a night full of political speeches will generate some ticket-scalping? If so, it’s just another sign of this one-of-a-kind campaign.

-- Don Frederick