Super Tuesday Redux

Senator Obama held his own for a guy runnning an "insurgent" campaign.

We've been told his "surge," fell short, but nobody from Obama's team said the spectacle of packed and raucous rallies would equate with sweeping away the Clinton machine.

The media drink their own Kool-aid way too often. They are the ones who should know better, but then get drunk on it.

Naturally Obama declared it an "extraordinary night," but the real revelations came from the Clinton camp with news the former first couple had to loan the Hillary campaign $5 million, suggesting things are a little more shaky than they would like the country to believe.

Public life, it would seem, has been good to the Clintons.

Then there is Sen. Clinton's press conference claim, "We wanted to be competitive and we were."

A number of weeks ago Super Tuesday was to be a coronation. She still has many strengths and advantages, but clearly Obama has put an end to any claims of inevitability.

Now, Obama has more money as the primary season swings into states the punditry have claimed favor him.

Don't be fooled.

The Obama campaign could not have expected more from the first "national primary" of its kind. The strategy of holding exciting rallies in small states rather than trying to take on big-time machines with an overpriced war of commercials appears to have paid dividends.

It is hard to argue against the idea that Obama's trajectory is upward and Clinton's down, even if she's slipping gamely.

George Will has written an excellent article about the impact of advanced voting on the Obama candidacy.

He notes that Obama actually did better than Clinton where votes cast on Tuesday alone are concerned. Those who voted early "in a rush to judgement" he said, now feel like "ninnies" for having missed a chance to join the apparent surge - the expectation of which, Will added, also dampened the response to his excellent showing.

Our unscientific methods out here in California provided highwayscribery with anecdotal evidence of people who were "bummed" they'd voted early.

But there is now more, if not tons of, time for folks to join Obama and avoid the backward step of putting Billary back in charge of the Democratic Party.

A comment on the post below from Spain seems to put it better than all than hours of expert commentary on Obama phenomenon.

"Looks like it can still happen."