Hello, country.

I’ve been getting letters from some of you out there wondering how I enjoyed Philadelphia. Let me make this perfectly clear: I’ve never been to Pennsylvania. I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I do appreciate the letters. As you all know, I am a reader. But I was not in Philadelphia last week, no matter what some of you seem to think. I was right here, shopping on Amazon.com for a Father’s Day gift for Poppa Badger, Glenn Beck. Sure, he’s not technically my father, but I’m sure dad will understand if I don’t get him another tie this year. Some things are just too important.

Anyway, time to get to the business at hand. Today is a big day in a primary season already full of big days. It’s the day when John McCain pulls the straight talk express up to the border of Pennsylvania, cranks out the extension and the awning, puts down some astroturf and some lawn chairs, throws on a comfortable pair of deck shorts, some knee-length black socks and his favorite pair of sandals and watches the democrats eat each other alive. He’ll have some burgers and brats ready around 4:30 and you know that there’s always a few tallboys in the cooler for those of you in the press, so make sure to stop on by. Cindy’s going to bake up some of her famous Passion Fruit Mousse. It’s a McCain family recipe, you know.

I know that I’ll be pulling up the Colbert Express, slipping on my favorite Hawaiian shirt and green-tinted visor and wandering over to partake in McCain’s utterly objective, in-no-way-attempting-to-inappropriately-influence-the-press barbeque party.

Now, country, I know that a good deal of you have been screaming to Hillary Clinton, who I like to call “Little Lieberman,” that she should drop out of the race. That’s just wrong. Not only is it wrong, it’s undemocratic. Not only is it wrong and undemocratic, it’s not sporting. You don’t stop the cockfight until one of them is dead or they’re both to beaten and bloody to go on.

The same goes for the Democratic Party’s Primary process. It’s not over until either Barack or Hillary is dead (figuratively speaking, of course) or they’re both too beaten and bloody to mount even the inevitably feeble campaign it would take for them to come anywhere close to John McCain in the general election. Let her stay in. You can place your bets with Bill Kristol over in the corner. Bill O’Reilly will be holding everyone’s money and taking care of the payouts.

What this Pennsylvania Primary really comes down to, analogies aside, is that Barack Obama hates America and working-class people and Hillary Clinton knows how to hold her whiskey. It’s as simple as that. After Obama called working-class Americans “bitter” a few weeks ago, he left no question that he was an elitest who is utterly out of touch with the average Joe. Hillary, on the other hand, drinks, shoots firearms and, along with her husband, has made over $100 million dollars since 2000. Now, what steelworker can’t relate with that?

On the other hand, Barack Obama just finished paying off his student loans from Columbia and Harvard. Plus, his name kinda sounds like “Osama.” There’s no way that he can relate to your average steelworker. In fact, it’s more likely that he hates them and wishes them and their family ill.

The cockfight is underway…Place your bets!