Must Win?

Though I've worked in campaign politics for 7 years and followed them for at least a bit longer, I still get surprised at how quickly things change, and how fast that which appears inevitible becomes unlikely. I felt pretty good by the end of the night on February 5th, but the news was that it was a better night for her. If she was the frontrunner going into Super Duper Tuesday, and she had a better night than he did, how did we get to where we are tonight? It's only exactly one week later. Three days ago, I advised you to focus on whether or not Barack would edge out Hillary in the pledged delegate count, and if so by how much, and would it be enough to overcome her lead among pledged delegates. Three days ago!

Well, three days later he is over 100 pledged delegates ahead of her, and the superdelegates are starting to move. The question before was will the people make their voices heard loud enough to force the superdelegates to follow them. Now the question is will the superdelegates take the first opportunity to let the regular delegates take them off the hook. Hillary is counting on Texas and Ohio to arrest her fall on March 4th, but will she even make it that far (ie, is this the Rudy Strategy?).

First New Hampshire, now the week after Super Tuesday - make predictions at your peril. It's a good night - a good week - for Barack, but the only prediction I'm willing to make right now is that more things are going to happen before we're done.