How Hillary Wins

By the way, I don't consider Hillary done--and I doubt anyone in the Obama camp does, either. Her path to nomination just got narrower, but unlike poor John Edwards, it hasn't vanished entirely. She plans to go negative, and she has buckets of cash to dump in these campaigns. She was hoping to save the money for Super Tuesday, but hey, smoke 'em if you got 'em, right? (Right, says John Edwards, sadly.) So let's assume she can blunt the Obama charge a bit. Let's look at the schedule.

First of all, before Iowa she had a 10-point lead on Obama in New Hampshire. What she needs to do there is hang on for a win or finish a respectable second (that is to say, closer than she did in Iowa--should be no problem). Her current trend in Nevada, based on admittedly scant data, is a trend double Obama's at 44%. If she can even finish second in NH, she might hang on to a win there. I think South Carolina may be beyond her, but in Florida, she's got a 29-point advantage. So, going into Super Tuesday, she could have as many as three states, and at least two.

Given her strength in NY (+32%), NJ, and California (+27%), she could pluck the biggest prizes without breaking a sweat. You see--she's back in the game pretty easily. And, if she emerges from Super Tuesday with a lead, the Obama hope may be dying and we could be back to talking about Hillary's amazing resilience. It's far, far from over.

(Unless, of course, Obama wins big in NH, in which case I delete this post from the permanent records.)