Hillary to take the steps

In a campaign stop in Philadelphia today Hillary Clinton declared that her candidacy for the democratic nomination resembled Rocky Bolboa's fictional fight career in that there is no quit in either. Of course Rocky ended up losing to the black guy, but if Hillary prevails in Rocky's home sate of Pennsylvania -- where she is expected to win -- she will live to fight another round.

So what state-appropriate never-say-die analogies will the former First Lady employ when campaigning in Indiana and North Carolina, the next two primary states?

Indiana's is easy enough. She can evoke the pride of South Bend, Daniel "Rudy" Ruettiger. Unlike this year's famous Rudy, the original Rudy also has no quit in him, and battled long odds to play for the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame.

But things get tricky when the former First Lady heads down south. Inhabitants of North Carolina are called "Tar Heals." One of the more popular explanations of how this nickname came to be is that during the Civil War North Carolinians impressed with their ability to stand their ground and never quit the fight under heavy gunfire.

Hillary seemed to be skillfully setting a Tar Heal-related analogy up when she spoke of braving sniper fire in Bosnia. But it all fell apart when Sinbad made an unlikely entry into the campaign and successfully dispelled this claim as fiction. And that was Sinbad the comedian, not the pirate. (Which doesn't make it any less ridiculous.)

If Hillary is really strapped for North Carolina analogies she can always conjure up the words of the Brooklyn-born North Carolinian Jim Valvano, who famously declared "don't give up, don't ever give up."

Soon after saying this Valvano died.