Letters to the Editor
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Hillary doesn't have the option of dropping out
(Reposted from another comments section, but I think it's still relevant.)
From what's being reported, Hillary is currently in debt to the tune of $25 million, about half of which is from personal loans she and Bill extended to her campaign (much of the other half is owed to super-consultant Penn the Hutt). If she wants to see that money back, she needs to raise it between now and the Democratic convention in August. After the contest is over, she can only repay herself $250,000, according to federal election law.
http://www.slate.com/id/2190880/
So I don't think that this is a matter of Hillary not realizing that it's over. I think it has more to do with the fact that she can't publicly admit that without seriously compromising her already anemic fundraising and flushing millions of her own dollars down the toilet.
That means that the few contributing supporters she has left are not improving her odds of victory one bit. They're sending Mark Penn an eight-figure thank-you note for the "heckuva job" he did in helping to snatch Hillary's defeat from the jaws of victory, and they're subsidizing the unwise investments Hillary made in her own lost cause.
That also means that Hillary is having to force herself to go through the motions of campaigning, even though she must know that she's finished. She can't go negative against Obama without risking massive superdelegate retaliation in the name of party unity (not to mention her family's political legacy), and in the dire state she's in, she's certainly not going to out-hope Obama.
How awful it must be to have to put yourself through the grueling paces of a presidential primary that has already gone on longer than any in history, knowing full well that you have absolutely no chance of victory. If she hadn't spent the last two months running a brutally negative campaign against the most inspiring candidate I've seen in my lifetime, I'd almost have to feel sorry for her.