I'll be waiting for the inevitable, "Well, you know, Senator Obama was always going to win NC, and he outspent us 2-1, so it's no surprise that he won by 15 points."

That will be rich, indeed.

Thank god! She's got to fight for every last vote if she wants to keep her lead in the popular vote.

This isn't Super Tuesday. It's not like the campaign has to pick and choose among the many contests being held, choosing where to spend its scarce resources. It just pulled in $10 million in 24 hours. The top officials in the campaign are focused on Indiana, so they've sent their top local manager to North Carolina. That's the sum total of contests.

Just as Obama knew he couldn't win Pennsylvania, but spent six weeks campaigning there anyway, Clinton knows she can't win North Carolina, but will spend some real time on the hustings. They were each trying to keep the margins manageable, and to exceed expectations, a lower bar than victory.

Another one bites the dust -- Is that how Queen put it?

Why can't Hillary "close the deal"?

She really needs to prove that she can win more than 10-15% of the African American vote in North Carolina, especially after Rep. Clyburn's comments yesterday. If she can't do that, there's just no way the super delegates can regard her as serious general election candidate. The Democrats aren't taking the White House back in November without big support from African American voters.

Hey TPM, why don't you report on how she is using push poll in NC to spread lies about Obama?:

http://www.thepersonalispolitical.com/2008/04/hillary-resorts-to-yet-another.html

-- much like Virginia before it, it has a lot of both African-Americans and urban white liberals --

I know, Eric, where would Obama be without Blacks and Latte-Sippers?

"I will OBLITERATE all the nomination rules. The nomination is mine, all mine, Bill promised it to me, in lieu of a divorce, many times over the past 35 years"

Hillary Obliterate Clinton

Obama can't win with pledged alone. Neither can Hillary. They both need superdelegates to hand them the nomination.

And at this point Hillary needs something around 80% of the remaining uncommitted superdelegates, more or less. The exact percentage depends on how she does in the remaining races, but even highly optimistic projections don't show her needing less than 75% or so, that I've seen.

Now, Obama has said in the past that the superdelegates should follow the will of the people. If more people have voted for Hillary than Obama, then superdelegates should side with Hillary. It's really quite simple.

If she is ahead in the popular vote not counting FL and MI (and not omitting any of the other states, as some of Hillary's spinners try to do sometimes) then that would certainly be a point in her favor. It's unlikely, but that makes it all the more significant if she somehow succeeds. I think if she pulls ahead in the popular vote counting every state but MI that's clearly a point in her favor, too, although having to count FL take a little bit of the shine off of that metric.

But you're oversimplifying things to reach the "quite simple" conclusion you reach.

First of all, whatever Obama and Hillary say about how the supers "should" choose, they're not obligated to make the decision in any particular fashion. I'd guess that few if any will make the decision based on any one metric. They'll look at the popular vote overall, but also at the popular vote in their own state, and where applicable, the popular vote in their own district.

They'll also look at the pledged delegate totals, because it's ultimately a race for delegates and if the supers end up overruling the pledged delegates it's not going to go over very well. They'll need a compelling reason to do that, and edging out Obama in the popular vote is just one data point.

Hillary has as much of a chance to win my home state as I do of sprouting wings and flying.

I can't repeat it enough of say it too loud - North Carolina is DEFINITELY Obama country. I don't think I've seen any recent poll with a higher Clinton number than 41, and that's the approximate ceiling. I expect a margin of 15-25 points.

Wonder how the jerkweed media will report the contrast? After the 2 worst weeks of Obama's campaign, Clinton wins by 9% in what is arguably her best state, demographically speaking. Two weeks later, after the media narrative of Hillmentum!!! (TM, idiotic), Obama wins a state with favorable demographics for him by 15+. Game, set, match. Not that it will be reported that way - need to keep selling ads by pretending there's still a competitive race.

I go by Obama's Raleigh HQ everyday. Much activity and enthusiam - white and black, young and old, male and female. Our democratic primary electorate is highly educated and highly African American. Both gubernatorial candidates are strong Obama supporters. There is no pro-Clinton machine to bail her out.

I voted early and will proudly serve as an attorney volunteer (monitoring polls) on election day. I'm 34 years old, married with three kids, and have never done anything like this before (pretty strong introvert). But it's like a calling - I feel that I simply MUST do something, and that giving money isn't enough. I can't imagine that I'm alone.

In an article further up, Ace Smith says:

"The fact of the matter is, they spent just absolutely mind-boggling and historic amounts of money and haven't been able to close the deal. And to close the deal here in North Carolina, they'd have to beat us by high, high double-digits."

That really doesn't sound like competing. That sounds like managing expectations.

Hillary is just planning to whine about getting outspent after the election is over. She can't take the heat.

Blacks make up a large percentage of the Democratic vote in N. Carolina. They are a much smaller percentage of the overall vote, which means they will have less impact in November. Because it is a winner-take-all State they will be voting for Obama in May and McCain in November.