1. She misjudged the mood - Running on experience in a change election.

2. She didn’t master the rules - her people, bizarrely, didn’t reckon much on proportional representation.

3. She underestimated the caucus states - Or I would say, she underestimated Obama. Assuming she could win through big primaries, she never put together the campaign apparatus to win small caucus states. Obama’s winning margin was cobbled together by places like Kansas.

4. She relied on old money - While doing well among traditional Democratic donors such as Hollywood, trial lawyers, aging Mafiosi, Buddhist monasteries and Chinese sleeper agents, she lost big to Obama in the internet money race.

5. She never counted on a long haul - Much like Napoleon, she didn’t reckon on a long campaign. Expecting a quick knock-out, she made few preparations for the post-Super Tuesday period. We all know how that ended. Now, by the time her ragtag campaign finishes its retreat to Chappaqua, only a handful of supporters and none of her dignity will remain.

These macro points are all perfectly sound. I think if I had to point to a single moment where things started to go bad, it would be the October 31st Democratic debate. Her fumbling of the drivers licenses for illegals question was the first time I saw a chink in her armor. From that point forward, she seems to be a bit off-balance and Obama seemed emboldened to push harder.

If this truly is the end, I have mixed feelings. It warms the cockles of my heart to see the Clintons get their comeuppance. At the same time, I think Hillary would have been a much better president than Obama. A Clinton-McCain race would have assured America of a seasoned grown-up for president. With Obama, not so much. Feh.

HT: RealClearPolitics.com

The post-primary analysis of Indiana and North Carolina is absolutely disastrous for the Clinton campaign. A representative headline reads “STICK A FORK IN HER - SHE’S DONE.” Everyone from the New York Post to Politico are writing her epitaph.

Hillary is not entirely without hope at this point. Her national numbers are still strong — her RCP national average is only 0.1% behind Obama, though this could change in post-NC polling. The upcoming primaries in KY and WV should be friendly for her.

Such bright spots are greatly outweighed by the negatives. The Oregon primary will end badly for her. George McGovern, a joke to the rest of the country but respected by Liberals, has switched his support to Obama. Worst of all, Hillary is out of money. Having previously loaned her campaign $5 million, Hillary gave herself an additional $6.4 million last month. Even with her knack for futures trading, she can’t keep this up indefinitely.

Perhaps her only remaining hope (aside from an unexpected Rezko or Wright revelation knocking out Obama) is the “nuclear option.” This entails ramming the Florida and Michigan delegations through the Rules and Bylaws Committee on May 31. If seated, these would give her a small delegate lead over Obama. Given her Tuesday losses, it’s doubtful she could pull it off at this point, but the nuclear option remains on the table.

Over at the venerable Lefty journal The Nation, Tom Hayden paid Hillary back in her own coin today:

“Hillary is blind to her own roots in the sixties . . . She was involved in the New Haven defense of Bobby Seale during his murder trial in 1970, as the lead scheduler of student monitors. . .

Most significantly in terms of her recent attacks on Barack, after Yale law school, Hillary went to work for the left-wing Bay Area law firm of Treuhaft, Walker and Burnstein, which specialized in Black Panthers and West Coast labor leaders prosecuted for being communists. Two of the firm’s partners, according to Treuhaft, were communists and the two others ‘tolerated communists’. . . doesn’t she see how the Hillary of today would accuse the Hillary of the sixties of associating with black revolutionaries who fought gun battles with police officers, and defending pro-communist lawyers who backed communists? Doesn’t the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whom Hillary attacks today, represent the very essence of the black radicals Hillary was associating with in those days?”

So Democratic primary voters have a choice between:

1. A leftwing activist with a soft spot for racists and violent 1960s militants

or

2. A leftwing activist with a soft spot for racists and violent 1960s militants

So much for celebrating diversity.

Michigan and Florida remain disenfranchised in the Democratic primary for violating party rules. This we know, and we also know that both Clinton and Obama agreed to these rules before setting out for their party’s nomination. But we’re still seeing ongoing debate whether those delegates should be seated — Clinton being a strong supporter of seating those delegates because she won those states.

I’m sorry, Mrs. Clinton, those were not the rules you agreed on.

Prominent Democrat leaders, including Mr. Dean, are demanding that Clinton end her campaign for the nomination because she is behind in delegates and the popular vote. I wish more than a handful of journalists, analysts, and pundits would point out the fact that even Obama cannot win the nomination without the support of superdelegates.

Clinton is right in her decision to continue; she is vying for the support of many superdelegates who have not supported a candidate yet. The superdelegates are given the power to vote however they want, and even a “pledged delegate” is not required to vote for his or her pledged candidate.

Dean and a number of other Democratic party leaders are now worried about the damage that can be done if the election is essentially given to Clinton, or “stolen” as some would like to call it. I don’t see it this way, if in fact the superdelegates should be expected to simply support the popular candidate, then what is the point of them anyway? Democrats must let their nomination process continue, just as they created it. It would be wrong for Mr. Dean to end this process early.

I’m sorry Mr. Dean, those are the rules you agreed on.

If Democrats cannot even abide by their own party rules, how can we expect them to act any differently in power?

Discussing the merits of both herself and Obama, Clinton stated something to the effect of how wonderful it is that America is at the turning point of electing the “first woman or African-American president.” Obama managed to twist the Rev. Wright story into a race issue, and now Clinton is turning her candidacy into a sex issue.

Nora Ephron from the Huffington Post had this to say regarding the Pennsylvania primary.

This is an election about whether the people of Pennsylvania hate blacks more than they hate women. And when I say people, I don’t mean people, I mean white men.

As Rush Limbaugh said today, according to her, it’s not about which candidate appeals to voters on the issues, it’s which candidate is hated more by white men based on their race or sex. To suggest that white men who vote for Obama hate women, or vice versa, that white men voting for Clinton hate blacks is in any sense of the word, absurd.

Furthermore, it is assumed that Nora is aiming her comments at conservative white men, disregarding the fact that most white men who will be voting in the democratic primary are, in fact, liberal Democrats.

For the party that claims to be in favor of advancing past the racism and sexism of the past, they certainly bring them up any chance they get. The truth is, conservative white men do not hate women or blacks, they simply vote according to issues and not according to stereotypes.

Us conservative white men would be proud to vote for a strong, Conservative woman or African-American. It just so happens that neither Clinton or Obama fits the bill.

-Joe