You may have noticed that in my blog entries about events over the past couple of months, I usually write about them at least a couple of days after they occurred.

As I've pointed out (some would say whined), that's because I've been pretty busy since The Barack and Hillary Show came to town, and I've been blogging whenever I could fit it in.

At times, that's been kind of frustrating for me. But just now, I realize there was an advantage to that set-up which hadn't previously occurred to me.

By the time I sat down to blog, the events I was writing about had a little bit of time to percolate in my brain. I was usually able to point out some aspect that wasn't in my original story.

Right now, I honestly don't have a heck of a lot to add to the story I just filed. Although I don't generally do this, I'm just going to put my story that's running tomorrow as my blog entry for tonight's events. I'm actually kind of pleased with the way it turned out.

But I do like to give you blog readers a little something extra. Here are a couple of observances. Maybe I'll have more to add later.

-- Four years ago, in the days right before the election, various Democratic organizations were busing in Democratic volunteers from other states to canvass for the Kerry/Edwards campaign.

I guess the assumption was that Republicans, with their registration edge, also had an edge when it came to volunteers. I was expecting the same thing in the days leading up to today's (now yesterday's) primary. In recent weeks, I would occasionally run into volunteers for one campaign or the other who had traveled up from Maryland.

The campaign organizers who were running the local Clinton and Obama headquarters were from out-of-state. And as I mention in the story, I did encounter one woman from New York who was staying with family here.

Other than that, all of the volunteers I encountered were local. I'm sure there were a few out-of-state residents who escaped my notice. But it appears that local Democrats don't have the dearth of volunteers they had four years ago.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see whether that makes any difference come November.

-- I've been at plenty of gatherings for defeated political campaigns in my career. Usually, they're pretty depressing affairs, with the candidate and the campaign chairman giving half-hearted "Hey, it was a great effort" speeches while a roomful of volunteers sit around and weep into their beers.

I didn't get that vibe at the Obama party, though. In fact, it was the liveliest of the three parties I refer to in the story.

I tend to agree with Ray's assessment. Two months ago, most observers predicted a pretty big margin of victory for Clinton. So for the Pennsylvania Obama volunteers, a narrow loss felt like ... not a win, exactly. Let's just call it Loss Lite.

And of course, as Ray pointed out, the race isn't over yet.

That's not to take anything away from the Clinton people, who really did run a hell of a campaign. Geez. Sometimes I think I'm too nice about these things to be a journalist. Before I go home for the night, maybe I should run out and kick a puppy or something.

Anyway, here's my story:

In three different rooms in York County, Democrats gathered.

Sipping from glasses of beer or soda, they talked over the latest numbers with varying degrees of resignation or elation, eyes never straying for long from the large-screen televisions that broadcast CNN at each gathering.

By the time final results came in Tuesday night, Hillary Clinton had beaten Barack Obama in York County by 28,768 to 23,248. The margin, Clinton’s 55.09 percent to Obama’s 44.52 percent, closely mirrored Pennsylvania’s as a whole.

At around 10:15 p.m., local Clinton supporters were toasting their candidate’s Pennsylvania victory in the White Rose Bar and Grill off Beaver Street in York.

Across town, in a room on the second floor of Cobblestone’s off South George Street, Obama supporters spoke hopefully of a national win, despite Pennsylvania’s incoming results.

And in Sam and Tony’s Celebrations Banquet Hall off West Market Street, York County Democratic leaders held their party’s official post-primary gathering — an ostensibly non-partisan event where the primary is concerned. There, they contemplated the logistics of bringing all of the county’s Democrats together in one room before the November general election comes around.

Mike Johnson, chairman of the York County Democratic Party, said he believes it won’t be that difficult. If anything, he believes that the past two months of intense campaigning by the Clinton and Obama factions have awakened a spirit of political activism among local Democrats.

Now, it’s just a matter of turning that energy toward a common goal.

“The only thing that’s not going to be easy is that some folks are going to feel that they need a breather for a while,” Johnson said. “I haven’t heard any examples of even the strongest supporters saying they won’t support the ultimate candidate.”

The results came after two months of heavy campaigning throughout Pennsylvania. Though Republicans have a registration edge over local Democrats to the tune of 40,000, York County still has Pennsylvania’s eighth-highest number of registered Democrats.

In addition to increasingly intense canvassing by both sides, the campaigns brought a number of prominent Democrats to York, stumping for one candidate or the other.

Recent weeks included visits by Hillary Clinton herself; former first daughter Chelsea Clinton; Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy; Barack Obama’s wife, Michelle; actor and director Rob Reiner; and former diplomat Joseph Wilson, husband of outed CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson.

Obama never made it to York County himself, but he did give a one-on-one interview with the York Sunday News.

As 25 people milled around the banquet room at Sam and Tony’s on Tuesday night, Johnson said he hoped some people would drift over from the other gatherings before the evening was over.

At the White Rose, many of the Clinton supporters were still sporting the signs, buttons and T-shirts they had sported from a day of intense canvassing.

June Downs of York and Colette Hayes of York Township both sat at a table, watching the results come in. Between them was Nancy Grossman of New York, who came to town Thursday to volunteer with the campaign and was staying with family in the area.

They were in good spirits.

All three said they were impressed with the efficiency of the operation. Each square foot of territory they had to cover was meticulously mapped out, each volunteer dispatched with an almost military precision.

Unlike the stereotype of the Clinton supporters, Hayes said, the volunteers were a pretty diverse group.

“It was not just 60-year-old white women,” Hayes said. “It was a lot of young people, too.”

At Cobblestone’s, about 50 Obama supporters milled around. Despite the fact that they were looking at a loss, the mood seemed fairly lively.

York Councilwoman Genevieve Ray said that local campaign volunteers for Obama didn’t feel defeated. His campaign started with predictions of a significant loss. The fact that Pennsylvania volunteers had narrowed the gap so much was actually a source of pride, she said.

Besides, Ray said that a loss in Pennsylvania does not amount to a loss of the national primary.

“It just means the race goes on,” she said.