Following last night's rout in North Carolina (Obama won by 14 points, or over 230,000 votes) and the turning of a potential rout to a whisker-thin win in Indiana (Clinton eked out an anemic 22,000 vote win out of over 1,250,000 ballots cast), the writing is on the wall, the fat lady has sung, stick a fork in her she's done.
Barack Obama will be the Democratic Party's nominee for President of the United States.
He now leads Sen. Clinton in the national popular vote by 711,777 votes, a margin she will not be able to overcome. If you add the rule-breaking votes in Florida and Michigan, she still trails Sen. Obama. And I bet that following last night's powerhouse performance, we will probably see super-delegates fall in line with Obama's candidacy.
Even Tim-MEH agrees with the new conventional wisdom:
So we have three questions: Will she bow out gracefully? Or will she continue to fight in hopes of stealing the nomination from Obama at the convention in Denver? Or will she simply get through the remaining primaries, aware that the nomination is not hers, but hoping to go out with her head held high?
We'll see. She's gonna do what she's gonna do. For the rest of us it's time for the general election campaign to begin. Obama vs. McCain, baby! And I like our chances. I like them very much!
