PERRIN CONCEDES RACE

After Hillary gave up and threw her lukewarm support to Barack, political analysts wondered when Carl Perrin would do the same. Although Senator Clinton had a lot more delegates than Dr. Perrin (who in fact had none), a lot of people like the former English professor better than the New York senator.

Mrs. Clinton tried to win the beer drinkers’ vote by posing with a mug of beer, but true beer drinkers knew that Perrin had come out in favor of cheap beer from the very beginning. He was drinking beer when Hillary was a toddler.

As Perrin looked over the political landscape after June 3, he realized he had no chance of winning the Democratic nomination. For a while he considered running as an Independent. Then he thought about the damage that Ralph Nader had done to the country in his 2000 run for the presidency. He could not bring himself to inflict that kind of harm to the nation again.

Perrin is withdrawing from the race and throwing his considerable influence behind Barack Obama. Perrin denies that he hopes his support for the Illinois senator will bring him a cushy job in the Obama administration. “Of course, if he offers me a job, I wouldn’t turn it down,” the professor said with a grin.

ANNIE OAKLEY

At a San Francisco fund raiser last week, Barack Obama said some working-class voters are bitter over their economic circumstances and "cling to guns and religion" as a result. Over the weekend Hillary Clinton called the remarks “elitist and divisive.” She went on to say she had learned to shoot a gun during summer vacations when she was a child. Not only that, but she shot a duck once when she was in Arkansas.

Obama has charged that she was talking like she was Annie Oakley. Now Vice President Dick Cheney wants to get into the act. He’s not about to let a Democrat outgun him. He has challenged Annie Clinton to a contest. They will go duck hunting and see who can shoot the most duck hunters. Oops! Make that ducks.