Maybe it's just me, but I'm going to miss the Democratic primaries. They were fun to watch.

I have a personal reason as well. I enjoy watching sports, but I've never been one to follow all the minute number crunching so beloved of the average hard-core sports fan. I've got some friends like that -- the kind that are always checking the latest scores on their cell phones to update their standings in whatever fantasy sports league has taken over their lives at the moment.

If you express an opinion on any particular game, player, or team, they'll throw a bunch of numbers and arcane information at you to irrefutably prove that you, pal, are WRONG!

The Democratic primaries gave me an opportunity to turn the tables on those guys. They were interested in the primaries, but not following them as closely as I was, allowing me to hold forth on the topic until somebody would emphatically change the subject.

(I can imagine you readers making a mental note, should you and I ever attend the same party, to immediately make a break for the bathroom if you see me approaching. Not a bad idea.)

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It's just about midnight on Tuesday, and I just filed my story for tomorrow.

If you're a reader of my blog, you're probably one of these people who follows politics, in which case:
1) Get a life.
2) You probably already know that Hillary Clinton won both York County and Pennsylvania as a whole.

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We've got another in the increasingly crowded field of would-be Democratic write-in candidates for the 33rd state Senate district.

This one is Bryan Rehm, currently a member of the Dover Area School Board. You may remember him as being among the slate of candidates who took office after that whole "intelligent design" brouhaha.

Rehm said he didn't have any particular ambition to be a state senator. But he was frustrated when he checked the Voter's Guide, and saw that no Democrats were on the primary ballot.

The way he sees it, if area Democrats are going to complain about local Republicans' political dominance, they should at least be willing to step up to the plate in situations like that. So if he gets the requisite number of signatures -- 500 -- he's willing run in November, Rehm said.

“I would be happy to run if nobody else is going to mount a challenge to the Republicans," he said. "But I would also be happy to fill out my term on the school board.”

He started calling and e-mailing people he knows, telling them of his decision. He said he didn't get to the polls himself until about 5:30 p.m., at which time he found out that he's not, in fact, the only Democrat running.

See my previous entry on write-in candidates for the backstory.

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At about 1:30 p.m., I stopped by the local Hillary Clinton campaign office on S. George Street.

I could see about a dozen volunteers, all women. Several sat at a table in a back room, phone receivers glued to their ears. I assumed they were doing some last-minute phone canvassing.

Another group of about five or six volunteers was preparing to do some door-to-door canvassing.

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I stopped by the Center Square in York, at the intersection of Market and George streets, at about 1 p.m. today. On each corner was a woman holding a sign for Barack Obama.

I spoke to one of them. Her name was Dana Gadsden. Drivers would occasionally honk their horns when they drove by. She'd smile and hoist her sign triumphantly in response.

"We have a lot of people yelling, honking," Gadsden said. "It feels good."

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In February, I wrote a story about how the scarcity of local Democrats running for state offices in today's primary.

All of a sudden, I'm getting word of several local Democrats taking a shot at it through write-in campaigns. There's a chance that they can still end up on the November ballot. But frankly, the odds against them are rather steep.

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It was Friday, and I was already preparing to cover Hillary Clinton's appearance in York the next day. Then I got a call from Mike Johnson, chairman of the York County Democratic Party. Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy was scheduled to stop by York on Sunday afternoon.

Wow! Being in a key primary state sure makes you feel wanted, doesn't it?

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As I mentioned previously, both Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy were in town this past weekend. And I went to see them both.

I guess we'll keep this in chronological order. I'll start with Clinton's visit Saturday.

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You could say it's been an eventful weekend. I covered Hillary Clinton's rally in York yesterday. And today, I attended an appearance by Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, who was in town to stump for Barack Obama. I even got to sit down for a brief one-on-one interview with Kennedy, which was cool.

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Leapin' Lizards!

So yesterday, I found out Hillary Clinton is coming to York tomorrow afternoon.

And this morning, I got a call from York County Democratic Chairman Mike Johnson. On Sunday, the local Democrats have a pre-primary open house planned at their headquarters on W. Market Street.

At about 2 p.m., Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts is supposed to stop by the local Barack Obama headquarters, located across the street from Democratic headquarters. Then he's going to head across the street to drop in for the local Democrats' open house.

I was going to make a joke along the lines of "What's next, wandering in the Central Market and seeing BLANK?" But I can't, for the simple reason that reality is outpacing any attempts at humorous hyperbole I could make.

A few years back, local Democrats didn't even have headquarters! Now they've got Ted Kennedy hanging out and eating barbecue with them.

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Neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton made it to the Democratic Society of York's 116th Annual Jefferson/Jackson Dinner on Thursday night. Both opted to attend an event taking place the same night in Pittsburgh, which isn't surprising.

Do the math. 567,542 Democratic voters in Allegheny County, vs. 104,657 in York County.

Still, no local Democrats were complaining.

State Rep. Mike Gerber was officially the keynote speaker. But the big news was an appearance by Joseph Wilson IV, the former ambassador who locked horns with Saddam Hussein in the run-up to the first Persian Gulf War. Most people know him as the diplomat who claims he found no evidence that Saddam tried to acquire yellowcake uranium in Niger, and challenged the Bush administration on it. He alleges that administration officials outed his wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, as an undercover CIA agent in retribution.

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In tomorrow's paper, we're running a story about some Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton TV ads.

Basically, we asked two York College communications professors, Thomas Hall and Lowell Briggs, to analyze a batch of ads from both campaigns. Briggs gave his take on each individual ad, and Hall provided more of an overall assessment.

I guess what I'll do is just provide the text of the story, with videos of the ads themselves plugged in at the appropriate intervals. Hall's analysis will come at the end.

Any questions? Anyone need to use the bathroom before we get started? OK then, here goes.

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As promised, here's my account of Hillary Clinton's visit last week. Gee, I'll bet you're just choked with excitement!

When we last left our hero, me, I was at the Barack Obama rally in Lancaster -- feeling a little sleep deprived, but still pumped about seeing two presidential candidates in one day.

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The big Clinton-vs.-Obama race was a bit slow in getting to southcentral Pennsylvania, but it's definitely here now.

John Kerry is in Harrisburg today, stumping for Barack Obama. Chelsea Clinton was at York College last week, stumping for ... one guess. They sent our education reporter, Nichole Dobo, to cover that one. I hope my editors didn't think I was serious about my intention to find out whether or not Chelsea thinks I'm cute. But given the way I conduct myself around the office, I must admit that I could see where they would be concerned.

And, as I found out Friday, Joseph C. Wilson IV is going to be the guest speaker at The Democratic Society of York's annual Jefferson/Jackson Day Dinner on Thursday. As in, the diplomat and husband of outed CIA agent Valerie Plame.

Wilson has been stumping for Clinton. Just today, the Philadelphia Inquirer ran a piece by Wilson criticizing Obama's foreign policy. But regardless of where they stand on the Obama-vs.-Clinton question, this is quite a coup for local Democrats.

I'm looking forward to covering it. And no, I don't intend to ask Wilson if he thinks I'm cute. Hell, I know I'm cute! I don't care what everyone else says.

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I knew about the Barack Obama rallies in advance. He had one scheduled Sunday night in Harrisburg, and one the following morning in Lancaster.

The Harrisburg event was scheduled to start at 6 p.m. I've been covering campaigns long enough to know that translates into 7:15 p.m. or so. Check-in for the Lancaster event was 8 the next morning. I figured I'd probably miss out on some sleep, and hoped I could leave work early the next day.

No such luck.

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OK, I am way overdue on these updates. As you may have gathered from my last (rather pathetic) entry, it's a hectic time for me.

In a moment, I'm going to give an account of the campaign appearances I covered this week -- two by Barack Obama, and one by Hillary Clinton.

But first, I'd like to mention something about the preceding video of Barack Obama's Town Hall Meeting in Harrisburg Sunday night.

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Whew! OK, here's my recent schedule:

6 last night -- Barack Obama rally in Harrisburg
10 this morning -- Barack Obama rally in Lancaster
2 this afternoon -- Hillary Clinton roundtable discussion in Harrisburg

It might not sound that bad, but keep in mind that I have to be there a couple hours before each event for press check-in, and file my stories afterward. Plus the driving.

Bottom line, I just completed my 13th consecutive hour of work on four hours of sleep. Although I'm sure any of the campaign workers reading this would be thinking to themselves "You think you've got a hectic schdule? Cry us a freakin river!"

Yeah, I'm a wuss. Whatever. Tomorrow, I'll give you all a full account of my past couple of days. I hope to edit and post my video of Obama's Harrisburg rally, too. Now, I'm calling it a night. I tend to get kind of keyed up when I'm going on a combination of caffeine and sleep deprivation. And I'm afraid if I stay around here, somebody on the night shift may end up strangling me.

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Wow. The past couple of days have been pretty eventful, and I have a lot of updating to do.

For starters, I got off the phone with Barack Obama a couple of hours ago.

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