White House Bureau Chief Jim Downie returns with news from the campaign trail (on a Tuesday!). April fools?

Spring means baseball, and on Sunday night, your blogger’s favorite baseball team, the Washington Nationals, opened their new ballpark in DC (with a win over the Braves, by the way). The number of people who thought last year that this Democratic primary would still being going when baseball started? Even fewer than the number of people who thought that all four top seeds would be in this year’s Final Four (that sound you heard after Kansas beat Davidson? Pool experts screaming as the novices celebrated their winning brackets).

As the primary campaign on the Democratic side drags on for at least another month (see below), people continue to ask: when is this going to end? And now, the news:

Should I Stay or Should I Go Now?: If you’re Hillary Clinton, the answer is stay. The New York senator, despite having no chance of catching up in either the popular vote or the pledged delegate count, has told the Washington Post that she will stay in the race until the August convention in Denver. She appears to be hinging her chances on unpledged superdelegates, despite Obama having closed the gap in that category by more than 50 over the past few months. Observers actually think that she could bow out after May 6 if she doesn’t win Indiana, but this race will be going for at least another five weeks.

Our Halftime Entertainment For This Evening… Healthcare!: Turns out that the last night of the Republican National Convention will also be opening night of the NFL season (Washington vs. New York). Stereotypes would have dictated the Democrats would not know when football season starts, but either way we get to see just how little Americans actually care about their leaders. (Also, a commenter last weeked thought that no mention of McCain on my part was somehow typical of Columbia. If that person could explain how the Republican primary is still interesting, I’d be glad to talk about it).

The CBS Fridays at 10: Poll numbers for  the Democrats in Pennsylvania (April 22), North Carolina (May 6), and Indiana (May 6) are here, here, and/or here. The first two should be won by Clinton and Obama, respectively, while Indiana will probably the latest “make-or-break” state that actually won’t end the campaign.

Learning New Tricks: For all you New Yorker readers who can’t get enough of political columnist Hendrik Hertzberg, he has a blog. A small warning to RSS-lovers: it appears there is no Hertzberg-specific RSS feed (at least for Firefox).

From the Dept. of Firsts: Clinton may be the first woman president, and Obama the first black president, but John McCain has his own first—the first short president in over two centuries. As Kevin Drum points out, no man more than an inch shorter than the national average has won the presidency in over 200 years.

At Least They’ll Be Collectible: Despite being from the same state as Lincoln, Obama is open to eliminating the penny. Does anyone know how we’ll make change, though? Some of us still occasionally use cash.

Spitzer, Patterson, Clinton?: Newsweek reports that some Democrats are floating the New York governorship as a safe place for Clinton between now and 2012. If I were a tasteless late night host, I’d say Albany’s had enough affairs. But I’m not, so I won’t.

They Asked For The Work Though: Ever wonder what it’s like maintaining your favorite candidate’s Wikipedia page? You didn’t? Really? Are you sure? In any case, find out here.