It's Fool's Day, and no better time to take the pulse of our national election spectacular. Here, in brief, is what's been going on with Hillary Clinton, John McCain, and Barack Obama.

No nice way to put it. Clinton is in trouble. Slate has her campaign on a deathwatch, figuring she has a 9.7 percent chance of winning the nomination. The reasons are that she is behind in fundraising, losing superdelegates, and not looking so hot in the polls. "So, with a dip in the polls, another superdelegate lost, mounting debt, and ugly numbers in Texas, the outlook in Hillaryland remains bleak," wrote Christopher Beam.

One reason for the drop in the polls, according to The Wall Street Journal, is that Clinton's faulty memory of running from gunfire on a Bosnian tarmac in 1996 has caused voters to doubt her in other areas. "The incident sparked allegations that she had exaggerated her role on other issues, such as the Northern Ireland peace process, opposing the North American Free Trade Agreement and bringing health insurance to children," WSJ noted. Ouchy.

It made my heart ache, though, to see the treatment Houston Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee got from fellow black Democrats who resented her support of Clinton over Obama. She was booed for her loyalty to a female candidate, rather than the black candidate. That kind of group think, which leaves no room for individual expression, is dangerous, short-sighted, and offensive to basic democratic ideals. Screw them, Ms. Lee. You support whomever you want.

As for McCain, the LA Times blog has a Fool's Day feature, suggesting that a voting machine glitch has revealed that he will win the presidency on Nov. 4. The scary thing, of course, is that with the many problems with electronic voting in the past few years, this joke has some bite.

Otherwise, McCain has been traveling to places like France and also doing that "Straight Talk Express" bus tour thing. His big challenge of late has been staying in the news at all. Without a Republican opponent, he can't compete with the Dems highly entertaining reality show.

Then again, maybe being low-key is good for McCain. When he gets riled up, he tends to say unfortunate things, such as when he said that Iran was allowing al-Qaida fighters into the country to be trained and returned to Iraq. After being corrected by Joe Lieberman, he said, ''I'm sorry; the Iranians are training the extremists, not al-Qaida. Not al-Qaida. I'm sorry.'' Not the kind of thing you want to be wrong about when you're running on your military and foreign policy prowess.

As for Obama, he seems to be holding steady after more or less weathering the Rev. Wright imbroglio. He's probably going to lose Pennsylvania to Clinton on April 22, but he continues to close the delegate gap and pick up lots of endorsements (Bill Richardson, Bob Casey, etc..). He's also starting to shift into the more practical (versus inspired rhetoric) mode he will need to be in if he wins the nomination.

The big question is when and how the Democrats will resolve the many gray areas involved in deciding whether Clinton or Obama should be the nominee. If the issues are not handled with intelligence and grace, it's going to be one ugly summer.

Now for something completely different. There's nothing like considering ourselves from the perspective of the masses abroad. An article in The Independent gives a dismal view of our economic prospects. Titled "USA 2008: The Great Depression," the article hardly gets rosier in the actual body of the story.

Apparently, by October some 28 million Americans will be on food stamps, up about 1.5 million from last year. "The US Department of Agriculture says the cost of feeding a low-income family of four has risen 6 per cent in 12 months" And that "next monthly job numbers, to be released this Friday, are likely to show 50,000 more jobs were lost nationwide in March, and the unemployment rate is up to perhaps 5 per cent."

Not like we haven't been hearing this from the hometown press, but it gives one pause when you get it from the English.