Over at The Politico, they see dark days ahead for the Hillary Clinton campaign. Some of the reasons they pointed to:
While Clinton’s campaign gloated about having the most total delegates for the cycle so far, her staff nevertheless recognizes that Super Tuesday was no triumph.
She lost the delegate derby. Pure and simple, this is a war to win delegates, one that might not be decided until this summer’s Democratic convention. And when the smoke cleared this morning, it appeared that Barack Obama had ended up with slightly more delegates in the 22 states.
She essentially tied Obama in the popular vote. Each won just over 7.3 million votes, a level of parity that was unthinkable as recently as a few weeks ago. At the time, national polls showed Clinton with a commanding lead — in some cases, by 10 points or more. That dominance is now gone.
She lost more states. Obama carried 14 states, six more than Clinton, and showed appeal in every geographical region (including an impressive one in bellwether Missouri).
She lost the January cash war. Money chases momentum, so Obama crushing’s 2-to-1 fundraising victory last month is revealing (and Obama is on pace to duplicate this money-raising feat in February).
The calendar is her enemy. For the foreseeable future (Washington, Nebraska and Maine are caucus states, which plays to Obama’s organization strength, followed by D.C., Maryland and Virginia, then followed by Hawaii and Wisconsin) Obama may see victory after victory after victory, potentially sweeping all those states. By the time Texas and Ohio roll around, Obama may have too much of a head steam to be denied the nomination.
Obama could, of course, fall flat on his face, but the immediate future looks very good indeed.
