Tuesday was a decisive night for Barack Obama.

Hillary Clinton won Indiana, barely, giving her as many states on the day as Obama got.

But the result made clear one thing: It doesn't matter anymore.

Ever since she fell hopelessly behind Obama in the pledged-delegate and popular-vote counts during a string of February defeats, Clinton has clung to a long-shot nomination strategy. She would not be able to overtake him in delegates or popular votes in the late primaries, but she could use them to shake Democrats’ confidence in Obama as a general-election candidate.

This would mean winning overwhelmingly in the late states where she was favored and picking off some or all of those that he had been expected to win. Only then, with Clinton making a compelling case that Obama’s supporters were abandoning him in droves, would superdelegates—loath to overturn “the will of the people” and to risk the devastating intraparty warfare that would come from thwarting an African-American who won a pledged-delegate majority in the primaries—be receptive to lining up with her en masse.

To Clinton’s credit, she strung this all out longer than many thought she could. She won in Ohio and Texas on March 4, when defeat would have meant the end for her. Then she pulled out Pennsylvania on April 22, and suddenly the wind seemed to be at her back. She began receiving a hearing from some opinion-makers on her specious “big state” argument and her questions about Obama’s seeming inability to connect with white working-class voters (something that made the coverage of Jeremiah Wright’s untimely reemergence all the more devastating for him). For the first time since January, Clinton picked up a new batch of superdelegate endorsements and when she latched onto a gas-tax-holiday plan and began bashing “elitists,” game-changing wins in Indiana and North Carolina suddenly became plausible.  read more »

Barack Obama's campaign just released the remarks he's prepared for tonight's primary night rally in Raleigh, N.C., in which he said his campaign stands "less than two hundred delegates away from securing the Democratic nomination ...."

He called Hillary Clinton a "formidable opponent," and congratulated her for her victory in Indiana, and expressed confidence that the party would be united come November.

The full speech follows:  read more »

Barack Obama is winning. North Carolina is his, comfortably, and his delegate-count continues to climb ever closer to a requisite primary-ending majority.

So why has his campaign felt like a long march over broken glass?

“It is painful to watch,” said an influential Obama supporter and delegate in an interview the day before the North Carolina and Indiana primaries. “It’s exhausting for everyone involved. It’s exhausting for Barack and Michelle. It’s exhausting for all the campaign staff, and I know it’s exhausting for the supporters.”  read more »

A pair of outright wins by Hillary Clinton on Tuesday could prompt immediate chaos, with already-jittery Democrats questioning anew Barack Obama’s general election viability and Clinton potentially moving into position to run the table in the remaining contests and to reverse some of the crucial metrics that have favored Obama and sustained his perceived inevitability for nearly three months.

Conversely, a pair of outright Obama wins would almost instantly end the Democratic fight, with previously uncommitted superdelegates interpreting an Obama victory on Clinton turf as cause to step in  read more »

INDIANAPOLIS—Barack Obama has become a family values candidate.

Wracked by questions over his beliefs, patriotism and values following the most tumultuous passage of his campaign, Mr. Obama has sought solace – and a new story line – in family.

Over the past few days, Mr. Obama steeped his speeches in talk about his grandparents and parents and physically evoked the imagery of idyllic Americana by campaigning with his wife and two daughters around picnic tables and playgrounds.  read more »

INDIANAPOLIS—Barack Obama continued his assault on John McCain and Hillary Clinton over their proposed gas tax holiday today during a speech his campaign billed as his plan to fight for working families and against special interests. Responding to a new advertisement from Clinton about the gas tax, Obama, speaking in a high school here, said,“Keep in mind that this is an idea that will save you all together, half a tank of gas.”

He argued that no experts or editorials had supported Clinton’s plan.  read more »

INDIANAPOLIS—Indiana’s Republican Party has its headquarters across the street from the office building where Obama held his press conference this morning, and where Obama supporters and campaign staff are still meeting and looking at charts of poll data.

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INDIANAPOLIS—In a question-and-answer session following his remarks about the gas tax holiday supported by Hillary Clinton and John McCain, Barack Obama acknowledged that the last week has been a bad one for his campaign, filled with what he said was “an awful lot of noise.”

When asked how upset he’d be if he lost in Indiana because of the controversy created by his former reverend, Jeremiah Wright, who he said he has not spoken with since the pastor’s poorly received media tour, he smiled and said, “I’m always mad when I lose.”

He seemed resigned to the damage done by the Wright story.

“We’ve had a rough couple of weeks, I won’t deny that,” Obama said when asked about how the controversy had hurt his chances in Indiana. He added, “I don’t think what happened with Reverend Wright was helpful,” that voters in the two states were “legitimately upset by it,” and that he didn’t doubt the controversy would be “factoring into the mix” of concerns weighed by voters.

“I have no doubt that these are going to be tight races—they have been tight throughout,” he added.  read more »

So far, 2008 has been the year of artificial momentum and warped expectations, and Hillary Clinton has been the beneficiary.

In contest after contest this primary season, we have seen the illusion of momentum, created by the spillover effect from recent results and whatever the dominant media narrative of the moment happens to be. So, for instance, when Barack Obama scored a clear win in Iowa and Hillary Clinton finished in third place, the Clinton Collapse instantly became the media’s obsession and Obama overtook Clinton in New Hampshire polls almost overnight.  read more »

SOUTH BEND, Ind.—Barack Obama is doing his own listening tour in Indiana.

“What I want to do is spend more time listening than talking,” said Obama at a small event at the fairgrounds here, where he discussed farming policies, subsidies and crop-dumping with a few dozen voters sitting around on bales of hay. Obama reminded them that he could also draw a crowd, listing his major events over the last few days, before saying, “It’s wonderful to see these big crowds but the problem is you don’t really learn a lot when you are listening to yourself talk. “  read more »