Black Box Report

When is a win not really a win?

When the battle is won even after the war was already lost.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Now that the Pennsylvania primary is behind us, Democrats are back to square one:

So, what happens? She wins by 9.4% — a number Clinton supporters round up to call it a double-digit win, and Obama supporters round down for the opposite reason. Clinton’s victory was decisive and impressive, but the margin fits nicely into that middle ground. It’s big enough to give Clinton a boost, but not big enough to change the overall dynamics of the race. It’s big enough to keep the campaign going for quite a while, but not big enough to compel uncommitted superdelegates to get off the fence.

In other words, after six weeks of campaigning in the Keystone State, and about $40 million of investment, the Democratic Party is largely where it was a month ago.

And where is that, exactly? With Clinton trailing Obama in pledged delegates, popular vote, contests won and money raised.

But Clinton's supporters have no time for niggling little details like that. They're giddy with their victory and already planning the next steps:

Clinton's campaign is cash-poor right now, and that's going to be a problem...To that end...I'd suggest to the candidate that we focus our attention on Indiana, and cede North Carolina, in fact if not officially...Almost any size loss (there) can be explained away as Obama doing well in the South, while a Clinton win in Indiana will help her build on Pennsylvania. That lets her go on to get inevitable wins in Kentucky, West Virginia, and Puerto Rico, and at the very least allows her to stay in the race, free and clear, all the way to June and beyond.

And beyond? To what end? She'll still trail in every metric you can think of. And here's the thing: None of that is likely to change between now and June 3. The margins she needs overcome either the delegate count or popular vote are simply unrealistic. Yes, Clinton raised an impressive $2.5 mil immediately following her Keystone State win, but that doesn't even cover the cash she owes to former campaign strategist Mark Penn. She's deep in debt, and Obama's flush with cash.

This leaves Clinton with her final card to play: the Superdelegates. And speaking of which, some people are getting a little impatient:

I have to say that I'm getting really tired of this. All the superdelegates should just say who they're voting for and bring this to the end. If they want to back Hillary Clinton despite Obama's majority in elected delegates, they should say so. Or if they want Barack Obama to be the nominee, they should say so. The idea that in two weeks we'll have another inconclusive primary, then another, then another, then another and then the superdelegates make up their mind is inane.

I get it. Superdelegates want to feel important. They want to be power-brokers AND receive the sympathy for those tasked with making a difficult decision. But at some point you have to fish or cut bait.

So is there anything that could swing things Hillary's way at this point? Well, yes, but it hasn't worked out so far:

The bottom line is that Hillary needs an Obama meltdown to have a real path to the nomination. After all the uproar about Jeremiah Wright and bittergate, that didn't come close to happening...What did happen was that all the people who think the extended nomination fight is killing party got a lot more depressed.

The beatings will continue until morale improves.