"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

"There's a pattern emerging here," she said.

Okay. Forget what I said elsewhere. Shut her down NOW!!!!!

"If you look for the social economic motive, you will not have to wait for history to tell you what was propaganda and what was truth." - George Seldes

But if the supers let this drag out over the summer, I'll have to conclude that some of them are closet republicans working against our party's best interests. And I'll take names and make sure to let others know who those people are so we can replace them as quickly as possible when THEIR seats are up for grabs.

The Obama supporters are a powerful force. The supers aren't dumb enough to think their futures don't depend on our support.

"If you look for the social economic motive, you will not have to wait for history to tell you what was propaganda and what was truth." - George Seldes

Do you hear that? "If enough [superdelegates] move, that's it." She has no way of winning, but she can't even continue unless the superdelegates are willing to trade all the lost opportunity and potential damage of further campaigning (which does indecisively favor Clinton) for an effort not to offend the Clintons. Why indulge them? On balance, what is to be gained?

Your logic is impeccable.  Obama will be the nominee.  The question for democrats is how to maximise his chances in November. Can anyone doubt that the long, tough and protracted campaign has strengthened Obama as a candidate?  

His greatest weakness going into this campaign was his perceived inexperience and the fact that he was largely unknown to many of the electorate.  Voters like to know how the candidates will perform in a crisis under tough conditions.  This is McCain's greatest area of strength.

What the Clinton campaign has done is to replicate the conditions of a tough campaign this fall.  It has given Obama a dry run, and the electorate an opportunity to gauge how he will perform under difficult conditions.  He has performed well and his name recognition has gone through the roof.  The Democrats have monopolised almost all media and political discourse.  Both Obama and Clinton have become much more electable as a result, and both are now building a lead over McCain that is becoming more and more secure.

So forget the faint hearts and shrinking violets who are bleating for an end to this campaign.  That you should have been so lucky to have such a sustained monopoly of public discourse!  Money couldn't have bough it.

The Superdelegates know this and are trying to squeeze the last few episodes of drama out of this storyline.  They know that once this is over the Republicans will start to be able to compete on even terms again.  Many will argue that we have had one sequel too many.  But will the public really remain as engaged in the process once this is all over?  The real National campaign won't start until September, so what's to be lost by squeezing out a few more episodes out of this drama and keeping the public engaged and the blogosphere hyperventilating about the infamy of the Clinton campaign.  She has done the Democrats the favour of making Obama electable.

The Democrats have had many years of practice of nominating soft, liberal, elitest and very worthy candidates who get burned in the heat of a real campaign.  Obama would have been no different but for the assistance of the Clinton machine.

All of this doesn't mean that Clinton "deserves to be on the ticket".  That is a different calculation entirely - and almost completely based on any electoral advantage the VP candidate will provide to the Democratic Ticket.

Obama should forget about Clinton now and reframe his campaign entirely around defeating McCain.  It is his own fault if he allows Clinton to distract him.  She has no realistic chance of defeating him.  The Superdelegates will throw the switch when the Clinton campaign no longer adds value to their all but annointed candidate.  

The campaign he will get from the GOP will get much worse in due course.  She is providing oxygen and motivation for his team and he should maximise this - but not return the favour - he should now channel all his energies against McCain.  

And the whining blogosphere he should ignore completely.  They know how to creates Deans and Kerry's; they don't know how to win a general election.  Sorry guys!  No doubt you will shoot the messenger!  I am not trying to be gratuitously offensive in saying all of this, but as Booman said in his last piece - you need Obama more than he needs you.

"We reported back to hearts what we had seen, and told our footsteps all about where we had been."

To all intents and purposes the race for the Democratic nomination is over.

The Illinois senator showed himself to be resilient in the wake of three weeks or so of crisis and, much more importantly, he got back on the winning track. This is the evidence that some super-delegates have been waiting for.

Many of them - most of them - had clearly made up their minds that they would not support Mrs Clinton, and so this had become a case of whether or not Mr Obama could close the deal. That is what appears to have happened last night.Where do we go from here?

My understanding is that probably today, but certainly within 48 hours, about 30 super-delegates will endorse Mr Obama. That should give him further momentum.

[.]

I honestly believe that she will find a way to get out of the race before the next primaries - so as to not hurt her future and to not be blamed for hurting Mr Obama and his chances in the general election.

Here are the reasons:

    - There really is no mathematical chance for her to win
    - Her campaign is virtually out of money - and it will be difficult for her to raise significant amounts of money after last night
    - Not enough happened last night to give her any hope, so continuing would only give the appearance of wanting to damage Mr Obama

Another problem she faces is that she is not perceived as a strong general election contender, because of her high negative poll ratings.

I have no evidence that she will throw in the towel, or when she will. She is a Clinton and the Clintons do not have the word "lose" in their playbook - but these are the things I am hearing from supporters on both sides.

[.]

My guess is that the remaining SD's don't want to get in the middle of that, and are waiting for Hillary and Obama to find a graceful exit for her, so her deranged flying monkeys don't take it out on them and the party with their votes or by making a mess of the convention.

Seeing that quote from Hillary about how she's staying for her white people, it doesn't seem like she's co-operating in the needed resolution.