This column was written from bottom to top today. The reason we started with the end and worked our way back up is that we were inspired to go off on a rant (rather than our usual talking points for Democrats). This was due to unusually high levels of panic in the media this week (actually it's not that rare that mainstream media panic causes us to go off on a rant, just in general). But because we started with this extended rant, we're going to have to summarize the week in lightning fashion here in this intro, because we are way behind schedule now. So without much extraneous commentary, here are the stories we noticed during the week.

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As we await the primary results from West Virginia, we have to note we've reached a milestone in the "predict the primaries" contest. With the exit of Ted Cruz and John Kasich from the Republican race, Donald Trump now stands alone, as he's the last Republican still in the race. Since he is now the presumptive nominee, we will not be calling any future Republican primaries (starting tonight, by ignoring the West Virginia and Nebraska GOP results). This is because calling a race with only one candidate is so easy it counts (in our rules, at least) as cheating -- pumping the score up by calling contests that are foregone conclusions. So what this all means is that I've now got a final score for my 2016 Republican primary picks.

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To tell you the truth, I never thought I'd have to write this article. I fully expected someone else to dig this stuff out, if the calls for Bernie Sanders to drop out of the race (or "say nice things about Hillary Clinton") began. Now that they have, I still haven't seen any detailed reminders of how the 2008 Democratic primary race ended yet. So I went ahead and dug them out on my own.

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You have to have at least a little bit of pity these days for the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus. He seems like one of those guys in a horror flick who keeps trying to convince everyone that the monster isn't real, and that everything can be explained by rational means... right up until the monster unexpectedly (for maximum shock value) rips his head clean off, in graphic 3D. The guy who has persevered in keeping his little group of teenyboppers together and somewhat sane ("If we can just get out to the barn and fire up that Model T/snowmobile/hot air balloon/mine cart/tractor... we can make it out of here to safety!"), who eventually sacrifices himself (in some horrific way) so that the rest of the group of worthless highschoolers can have a chance at survival. You know the guy, right?

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Bernie Sanders just had a very good week. Six states voted in the past week, and Bernie won five of them. Overwhelmingly. Bernie got over 70 percent of the vote in four states, and over 80 percent in Alaska. All in all, a pretty good week. His delegate count has now hit four digits, with superdelegates added in. That's all pretty impressive, but rather than focusing on his chances for actually winning the Democratic presidential nomination this time around (which are still pretty low, even with that impressive string of victories), instead what intrigues me is how the movement of Democratic populism seems to be growing. If Sanders falls short this time around, the next time a populist runs they may actually succeed. Bernie has already gone a long way towards transforming the Democratic Party away from its embrace of economic centrism (the Bill Clinton and Democratic Leadership Council era) towards a much more people-centered party.

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Since we're all going to be busy tonight watching the next round of election returns come in, I'm not even going to attempt any political analysis today. Everything might change in a couple of hours, so why bother? Instead, I'm going to just toss out a wonky diversion for everyone to contemplate while we wait for West Podunk County to get its act together and get the damn numbers in to election central.

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The Republican presidential candidates are about to debate again, which is always entertaining for Democrats to watch (in horrified fashion, of course). The current state of the Republican race is that it has reached the point where loud voices are beginning to demand that both Marco Rubio and (to a lesser extent, at least so far) John Kasich bow out of the race. The logic is persuasive, to all but the candidates' inner circles: "You can't win the nomination, and your continued presence in the race is preventing our best shot at dethroning Donald Trump, so for the good of the party you should drop out." Look for this to be the one thing Trump and Ted Cruz agree on, tonight -- that Rubio and Kasich should just pack it up and go home. But while this argument is being made on the Republican side, for Democrats the argument just isn't going to be valid. Because the one thing Hillary Clinton cannot do is to call on Bernie Sanders to exit the race.

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The mainstream media, or "Fourth Estate" (as it likes to call itself), is supposed to play an important role in how America chooses our presidents. It is supposed to "vet" these candidates, which means digging into their backgrounds and exposing any dirty laundry -- or refuting stories of dirty laundry -- while the voters still have time to make up their minds before they vote. Once again, however, the media is doing a particularly dismal job of doing so.

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For those readers who weren't alive (or old enough) to experience the 1960s, this week we had somewhat of a history lesson, packaged as a Democratic debate. Now, part of why this happened is that the Democratic presidential campaign has entered into a "convince the minority voters" phase, since the upcoming two states to vote have a lot of Latino (Nevada) and African-American (South Carolina) voters. So there was quite a bit of attention spent on the Civil Rights era, which will continue right up to Super Tuesday, at the very least. We keep waiting for Bernie Sanders (or a moderator, for that matter) to bring up the term "Goldwater Girl" in a Hillary Clinton question, and last night would have been a dandy opportunity. But PBS held a much more "polite" debate, meaning lots of softball questions and ignoring any unseemly discomfort for the candidates (at least, for the most part).

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It is time once again to peer deeply into my somewhat-foggy crystal ball, and attempt to pick the winners of tomorrow night's New Hampshire primary. Before I get to that, though, some old business needs to be brought up. First, we have some very recent old business and then some truly ancient business, so bear with me.

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