My future in punditry grows brighter by the day! “Why?” You ask. Well, I’ve seriously blown a major election prediction. Huzzah! Move over Rachel Maddow and John King, and make room for another empty-headed windbag! (*note: I actually like both Maddow and King. They don’t hold a candle to the vast wasteland of brainlessness at Fox News.)

Now that I’ve gotten my mea culpa out of the way, let’s move on to why last night does not signal the demise of Obama ‘08.

Hillary won last night in Ohio, Texas (primary) and Rhode Island. Barack won in Vermont and Texas (caucus – probably). I’m sure you knew this. Hillary looks to net a +3-15 delegates from last night, depending on how the caucus and some remaining discrepancies hash out.

It was a great night for Hillary, having suffered 11 straight defeats to come back in two big states (one a serious battleground in the general) is a substantial feat. Having said that, she put nary a dent in Obama’s 150~ delegate lead (you know, what actually counts). What she does gain is the media narrative. Cries of “comeback” will surely embolden the Clinton campaign, at least enough to push forth through April 22nd. But will this victory prove to be Pyrrhic?

In focusing on these two states as their firewall, the Clinton campaign sacrificed 11 states and a whole heck of a lot of momentum to Obama. Also, as I said in the comments of the previous post, he still has establishment backing and a ton more money. The calendar appears to favor Obama as well. WY and MS, the ACTUAL next two states, should go solidly for Obama. This puts him back in the news as a winner.

Let’s say Clinton wins in PA, she’ll get a similar boost to what she got today. This would once again only slightly chip away at the delegate lead (probably taking back what Obama gained from the two previous states), and serve as another “reason for her to stay in,” not “reason for Obama to drop out.” Just two weeks after this, the final 100+ delegate state(North Carolina) votes… which just so happens to be solidly in the Obama camp. So on May 7th, we very well could be exactly where we are today, barring some sort of intervention/catastrophe/etc.

The question that remains… will last night serve as the path to a brokered convention or simply Hillary’s last gasp?