Hillary Clinton is not giving up, no matter how much the choir of politicians and pundits sings. She gave a victory speech last night in Indiana before the crucial Lake County and Gary, Indiana votes had been counted. As the Indiana vote remained too close to count, it was uncertain that she was the winner. She did win the state by a slimmer margin than expected.

The [Clinton] advisers said they were dispirited over the loss in North Carolina, after her campaign — now working off a shoestring budget as spending outpaces fund-raising — decided to allocate millions of dollars and full days of the candidate and her husband in the state. Even with her investment, Mr. Obama outspent Mrs. Clinton in both states.

For several hours, incomplete results from Lake County in Indiana — home to the city of Gary, just across the state line from Chicago — left the statewide tally in doubt. The delay meant that Mrs. Clinton did not appear on television until well after Mr. Obama, allowing him to put his stamp of victory on the evening.

Source: Obama Wins North Carolina Decisively; Clinton Takes Indiana by Slim Margin


Several news reports today confirm the reality that the numbers do not add up for Hillary Clinton. Lending her campaign money – a loan of $6.4 million, the AP reports – and fighting on with speeches and appeals for fundraising do not change the mathmatics. And, as Adam Nagourney points out, what Obama has called “manufactured political distractions” did not change the landscape for Clinton.

In the last several weeks, Mrs. Clinton, seizing on the campaign’s new focus on the weakening economy, seemed to find new energy and a more populist voice. She ran hard on a proposal to suspend the federal gasoline tax, an idea that Mr. Obama scorned. As she battled away, Mr. Obama struggled to explain his relationship with his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., and his apparent inability to appeal to blue-collar voters. Polls suggested that Democrats were starting to develop doubts about the strength of his candidacy.

In short, Mrs. Clinton could not have asked for a better second chance to turn this campaign around and to make her central case to superdelegates: that Mr. Obama was a damaged general election candidate who would get swallowed up by the Republican Party.

Yet she was unable on Tuesday to build her base of support substantially beyond the white, working-class voters who had sustained her for the last month. That will not be lost on the superdelegates, the elected Democrats and party leaders who will ultimately decide this fight.

And the superdelegates are where the fight is moving: after 50 nominating contests, there are only 6 left, with just 217 pledged delegates left to be elected, not enough to get either of them over the 2,025 threshold necessary to win the nomination.

Mr. Obama’s aides said Mrs. Clinton would have to win close to 70 percent of the remaining pledged delegates and superdelegates to win the nomination, a shift in the campaign’s trajectory that would seem possible only if some big development came along to hurt Mr. Obama.

“Unfortunately for her, the math reasserts itself,” said Carter Eskew, a Democratic consultant not affiliated with either candidate. “I don’t think this changes very much of anything”

Source: Clinton’s Options Seem to Dwindle

Hillary Clinton’s victory speech in Indiana, May 6, 2008

See also:

• Transcript: Senator Clinton’s Remarks in Indiana
• Ugly truth why Hillary Clinton won’t quit
• Hillary and Bill Clinton in defeat and victory: When pictures tell the story
• The Note: ‘Fight Is Over’: Clinton Needed Big Victory, Obama Emerged on Top
• Conference Call from Planet Clinton
• Game over for Hillary
• Obama Wins; How Does Clinton Lose?

Holding their own alongside the usual kinds of videos that go viral — music video, mashups, cute animals, etc. — two videos of news analysis of Hillary Clinton’s diminishing odds have garnered tens of thousands of views. Here are both of them.

Tim Russert - ‘The Nominee’

Countdown: Olbermann Defines Hillary’s Goalposts

We never would have thought an analysis of delegate counts could be so captivating, but it is when we watch a candidacy deny it. Not so long ago we had lots of candidates in both political parties and one by one, they have dropped out, running out of money, running out of time or simply realizing they are at the end of the road.

Bill, Hillary, Chelsea Clinton with Al and Tipper Gore, 1992 Presidential election

How long will it take before the former First Lady and First Family drop the quest to become the First Family the second time around? In years past, the 1992 Bill Clinton campaign theme song was Fleetwood Mac’s “Don’t Stop (Thinking about Tomorrow).” No doubt they never envisioned the 1992 Boyz II Men No. 1 hit single “End of the Road” would sum up the 2008 Hillary Clinton campaign.

That’s the latest on Hillary Clinton’s Audacity of Denial.