There is a difference between declaring a campaign dead six months before a single vote is cast and declaring one dead with 80% of the contests finished.

While Hillary could technically still get the nomination it'd be a situation where even if she wins, she will lose.

Any general election polling done now is done without knowing the impact of the smoke filled room Democratic convention that would be needed to make her the nominee. The Hillary that pollsters are asking about now is a Hillary that is just a candidate. The Hillary that people would be asked to pull a lever for in November would be the Hillary that enticed a large majority of party insiders to go against the trend of the regular democratic voters.

The thing is, Hillary isn't going to get the superdelegate support she needs to win the nomination. Mathmatically _possible_, but the reality is that the superdelegates are nearly split the same way that the general public is. That kind of split isn't going to get her to 2025.

She can certainly force it to go to the convention even if enough declared supers put Obama over the top, she can just claim that they can change their minds. Whether it is a good thing for the party is another matter.

At first I was ok with Clinton continuing on, if for no other reason than to keep interest in Democrats up and to give her a platform for issues she cares about. But she really crossed a line when she and Bill make statements that stop just short of saying that Democrats should vote for McCain over Obama in November.

The Democratic Primary system has been the system that has been used for years. But suddenly when an outsider candidate gets an advantage from it, the system is suddenly "undemocratic". The Clinton were in the pole position to change this in the Nineties but opted not to.

Grow up children, you don't change the rules in the middle of the game. If it really bothers you try to get the rules changed before the next game.

Personally, I think the electoral college sould be like the Democratic system: Award delegates by legislative district. That way you would actually see candidates in more than 10 states after the conventions.

And Obama has had a lot more of them. Hillary needed big margins (20 pt) in the remaining contests to even get her pledged delegated delegate deficeit to _just_ 100.

This is a win for her the same way that Louisiana and Kansas were wins for Huckabee. Too little, too late.

Let's be clear: she won her neighboring state with the second oldest population in the nation and the race was still competative. She lost ground.

What is her path to victory now? win Indiana by 40 points? North Carolina by 10? Somehow get Arkansas sized victories in Oregon, Montana, and South Dakota?

It would have been nice if Obama had won, but his nomination didn't depend on it. Heck, by gaining as much ground as he did he won by virtue of not letting hillary's win have much of an impact.

And get over the spending margins. Obama is far outpacing Hill on primary fundraising. What was he supposed to do, not spend it?

Hillary still has a chance of getting the nomination, in a theoretical sense. The same theoretical sense that says I have a chance of being adopted by Bill Gates and marrying Kristen Bell. That said, the reality is that she has yet to meet a real bench mark needed to overcome the losses she received in February. She needed to step up and she hasn't. Obama isn't going to get a knockout. He doesn't need to. He is going to win by decision.

I've yet to hear a major unaligned Democrat say that the winner of the nomination should be the one would wins the biggest states (regardless of any other factor).

On the other hand, major unaligned Democratic leaders have said the party should nominate the pledged delegate and/or popular vote leader.

Considering that Hillary only wins if she gets a ridiculously large percentage of the supers I'd say tonight was a loss for her since it didn't do enough to deliever her a shot at the popular vote lead or the pledged delegate lead.

The real deciding factor in this contest has been age. Essentially Hillary has been kept afloat by the pre-boomer generation that sat by and accepted Jim Crow.

Although the pasing of each candidates base is funny. It makes it sound like Hillary's base is uneducated old white or latino women who don't have two dimes to rub together. I didn't realize my family reunions were such a powerful voting block.

"Obama's nod toward Clinton's victory was gracious, but it didn't last long"

Do Salon suffer from the same condition as the guy from Memento? Clinton has rarely, if ever, congratulated Obama on any night that he won a contest (that is a lot of nights) and no one in the media says boo. But because it is Obama congratulating Clinton there is suddenly a time standard for congratulations.

Of course this is the same media that thinks 9.3 rounds to 10. That is the problem with letting Communications and English majors direct the narrative and not Math majors.

"But you're leaving out the droves of women voters, working-class voters, Latino voters, Jewish voters, and so on, who make up Clinton's base."

Actually, once you control for age, those cohorts stop being Hillary's base. The age of voters has been the deciding factor in these contests. Even there Obama is making inroads.

"And I'd like to see one shred of evidence to support this brown tripe the Hussein-Obama terrorist fan club keeps promoting."

Don't you have anything better to do, or are your white sheets and hood at the dry cleaner?