I am in Abu Dhabi to give a speech tomorrow to a conference sponsored the financial firm, UBS. As long-term readers of MULLINGS have come to know, I have been to this region many times and I like it.
One of the advantages of being in the Middle East is that there is an eight-hour time difference. I am typing this at 10:30 Monday morning UAE time which is 2:30 AM in Your Nation's Capital.
While 90% of those of you on US soil are fixated on the primary election in Pennsylvania tomorrow, the major English language newspaper here, The Gulf News, found it could wait until page 23 before getting to the US elections.
The major story on the front page of The Gulf News describes the decision by the United Arab Emirates to begin moving toward nuclear power to meet its energy needs by 2020.
You may know that they grow oil here, so if the Emirates think they need to move to nuclear power, what do you think will happen to the power grid in the United States over the next couple of decades.
As we are somewhat more interested in the ins-and-outs of the American political landscape than the average Abu Dhabian, the campaign finance reports for March have been released showing that Sen. Barack Obama raised $41 million during the month - down from the $55 million he raised in February - but still unbelievable by any rational standard.
Overall, Obama has raised some $235 million. At his current rate he will have broken through the QUARTER OF A BILLION DOLLAR mark by mid month.
There is a point of diminishing returns, however. When that point is reached, the additional money spent does not have an additional impact on the campaign.
No matter by how much Obama will have outspent Sen. Hillary Clinton between April 1 and tomorrow night, the RealClearPolitics.com polling summary shows Hillary hanging onto a six-ish point lead moving into the final hours of the campaign there.
Finally, on all this, Barack is in a full whine saying Hillary is throwing "the kitchen sink" at him with charges which are nothing but "distractions" from the big issues. ABC's Jake Tapper captured the theme on his blog, writing: "How on Earth can Obama with a straight face decry these "distractions" when his campaign that very same day organized a conference call to harp on Clinton's Bosnia-sniper-fire gaffe?"
This has gotten so ugly, that I am not now certain Hillary will get out of this thing even if she loses tomorrow.
Hope, as they say, springs eternal.