The Results

I was out tonight, returning from some family activities, so I tuned into NPR to see what happened in today's primaries. I heard that Obama had done well in North Carolina--he'd scored a decisive win, he'd won handily, he'd overpowered Hillary--but I never did hear the details. Since it's all coming down to the numbers, that seems like it's just a bit of an oversight. Fortunately, we've got the Internet, and The New York Times didn't have a similar problem providing the results. I have to admit that I'd been worn down and was expecting maybe about half that margin, but 14 or 15 percent is pretty significant at this point, even if Obama had been tipped for even more at one time.

So did it turn out to be pretty much a wash with Indiana, as I was expecting? This is even more surprising to me than North Carolina, but as I'm writing this, shortly before midnight, a winner has not yet been declared. According to the Times again, with 95 percent of the vote in, Hillary's up by about a point and a half. Admittedly, 95 percent is almost all, so I expect Hillary to pull it out, but this was supposed to be a decisive win (and North Carolina was supposed to be an upset). When you add suggestions that Republicans are crossing over in Indiana to vote for Hillary (Limbaugh's already taking credit), Hillary's margin of error may have been provided by people who don't even support her.

No, even if Obama comes out on top in Indiana, I don't expect Hillary will withdraw. Somebody in some part of the coverage I heard passed along the idea that Hillary may be reassessing her chances with superdelegates. I don't see how she can't, but she's also made too big a deal of her decision to keep fighting to back out when her numbers aren't adding up. I'm entertaining the idea that she might withdraw at the end of the state contests in a month. We'll see.