Post-Wisconsin Analysis

...from Kos, himself, Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, because his points are well worth the time:

This was me a lifetime ago, at least in blog time. In actual time it was just two weeks ago, the Monday before Super Tuesday:

For Obama, his task for Tuesday is simply to survive. He needs to finish within 200 delegates of Clinton to keep it close, because the rest of the month is tailor made for Obama.

Obama did better than that, he won Super Tuesday. After Super Tuesday I wrote:

Well, Clinton came nowhere near what she needed to do to build a strong delegate lead (and super delegates can change their mind, they're not locked in). Obama needed to survive, and he did more than that -- he outright won the night. Now his job is to finish off Clinton. If he can rack up a full month of 20%+ victories the rest of this month, he does just that.

People accused me of not playing the expectations game, and they were right. I wasn't. The thought of closing out the month with 20 point victories seemed pretty silly, but that's what I thought it would take to close the deal. So let's see how February ended up looking [for Obama], post-Super Tuesday:

[The listed numbers being his margin of victory over Clinton]
Louisiana: +21
Nebraska: +36
Washington: +37
Maine: +19
Virgin Islands: +82
DC: +51
Maryland: +23
Virginia: +29
Wisconsin: +17
Hawaii: +52

Look at those numbers. We've got white states, we've got "black" states. We've got southern states. We've got western states. We've got northern states. We've got cheeseheads. We've got caucuses. We've got primaries. We've got rich states. We've got working class states. We've got Blue states. We have Red States. (We've got the start of a Doctor Seuss rhyme here...)

You know what we don't have? A single close contest. Not a one. The rejection of Hillary Clinton has been absolute. Okay, Obama didn't sweep with 20+ victories, but really, he did what he had to do. Hillary only has *one* two victories above 17 points (Arkansas and Oklahoma). I'm surprised he even won Maine. Clinton's campaign is now effectively dead.