Here's the Windup. And There's the Pitch.

An analogy before the latest in the string of "super" Tuesdays.

Suppose you're a coach, and you have one spot open on your team. Two players are vying for that spot. In every measurable way, they are the same. Let's say, for purposes of the analogy, that they are baseball pitchers. Each can throw all the pitches, and the top speed of the fastball is the same. From pure performance data, they are equals.

One, however, is a well-trained pitcher. He has come up through Little Leagues and has been at baseball camps all through his life. He has a pitching coach you admire.

The other is very new to the sport. His talent is raw.

Who do you select?

The traditional answer to this is simple: You take the raw player, because skills can be coached, but talent cannot. As a coach, you believe you can take the raw player and improve his measurable skills. The "upside" is bigger.

OK, so now we have Clinton vs. Obama. Who do you take?

This is a harder question, but it's similar. You see, if I were selecting one of those pitchers as a prospect, I take the raw player. The raw player can take time to improve. But if I needed one pitcher for one game, right now, I would take the experienced player. I would take the one who had coaches to help at the first sign of trouble, and the experience to handle the tough inning.

So, when we select between Hillary and Barack, are we willing to watch the growing pains as the candidate with the greater "potential" builds his team and stumbles and gets bogged down in the realities of politics, or will the fact that politics happens to the best intentioned people ultimately remove from him the only real attraction that differentiated him from his opponent?

Conversely, are we willing to take up arms with someone who is already full formed, who will not change, who is unlikely to win over people who have already decided against her? We know she will hit the ground running -- she has the machine in place to do it. But we know (or think we know) the maximum of her potential, and it just doesn't look nearly as impressive as the potential of her opponent.

The people of Ohio and Texas, and Rhode Island and Vermont, are the coaches tomorrow.

Just to clear, though, I would take either one of them before I'd take a pitcher who throws hard inside when I wanted a ball low and away. If he's not going to do what I ask him, he isn't getting on the mound.