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INDIANAPOLIS — There was no real way for Hillary Clinton to win yesterday; there is less hope today.
She absolutely had to close the gap; instead, Barack Obama widened it. He scored a double-digit victory in North Carolina, which has 115 delegates. In Indiana, which has 72, the margin was razor-thin - so razor-thin that formal victory, once the very last, disputed ballot is counted, may be meaningless.
It was a disappointing night for Ms. Clinton. She has almost run out of states, has almost run out of controversies, and has almost certainly run out of time.
There is now virtually no hope that the New York senator can reverse the Illinois senator's lead in pledged delegates, popular vote, or states. She has no good argument to offer the uncommitted superdelegates that they should flock to her standard. That standard now anchors a last stand, as she vowed last night to fight on.
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Once again, this race has fractured along lines of race, gender, class and religion. About half the voters in Indiana said the conflagration over Rev. Jeremiah Wright's incendiary comments influenced their vote, and most of them voted for Ms. Clinton. About two-thirds of working-class voters went her way in both states.
But North Carolina's large black population went nine-out-of-10 for Mr. Obama, who also scored a win among middle- and upper-middle class voters. White women in that state, however, went for Ms. Clinton over Mr. Obama two-to-one.
These fissures threaten to undermine the cohesiveness of the Democratic coalition. Ms. Clinton has signalled that she intends to fight all the way to the Democratic National Convention in August. She likely won't.
The powerful voices of the Democratic Party leadership - former vice-president Al Gore hinted yesterday that he would endorse, and he is thought to favour Mr. Obama - will finally speak over the coming weeks. It is hard to imagine them declaring for anyone other than Mr. Obama, who leads this race by any metric.
The leadership in the House and Senate and in other power centres around the country will almost certainly herd the 230 or so remaining undeclared superdelegates (senior party and elected officials who vote at the convention) in Mr. Obama's direction. Barring the unforeseen - and mind you, this primary season has been all about the unforeseen - writers may soon start referring to Mr. Obama as the presumptive nominee.
For Ms. Clinton, this must be incredibly frustrating, for she has pulled off a remarkable comeback during the past two months. In the rustbelt primaries that stretched from Ohio in March to Pennsylvania in late April, Ms. Clinton successfully reinvented herself as a political populist, the scourge of what she calls "elite opinion"- those who champion untrammelled globalization and carbon taxes.
She won these primaries, in part, by vowing to rewrite or scrap trade agreements, particularly the North American free-trade agreement, and by proposing to suspend the federal gas tax to counteract rising fuel prices.
That her husband's administration epitomized the era of globalization, and that the Clintons are themselves the personification of the liberal political elite, didn't seem to matter. Working-class white voters played along with the ruse.
Mr. Obama tried the same game, but failed. He too vowed to protect jobs by toughening trade restrictions, although he won't go along with the herd in calling for relief from the federal gas tax.
He campaigned in rolled-up shirt sleeves, dropping every "g" in his powerful, populist speeches. (The 2008 presidential election may be remembered as the event that signalled the final demise of "going to" and "want to" in political speeches; they appear to have been permanently replaced by "gonna" and "wanna.") But Midwestern voters long ago took the full measure of Ms. Clinton, while Mr. Obama, the mixed-race Harvard lawyer and social activist, was too exotic a commodity. They went with the Democrat they knew.
Mr. Obama did demonstrate, however, that his coalition of blacks, the young and the affluent remain passionately committed to his cause. And that was enough for a big victory in North Carolina, where demographics worked for him rather than against him.
In the remaining primaries, Ms. Clinton is favoured to win West Virginia (May 13, 28 delegates) Kentucky (May 20, 51 delegates) and Puerto Rico (June 1, 55 delegates); while Mr. Obama should be able to take Oregon (May 20, 52 delegates) and South Dakota (June 3, 15 delegates). Montana (June 3) is apparently contested, but with only 16 delegates, who cares?
Ms. Clinton has two choices now: to watch the inevitable play out, choosing the appropriate time to concede defeat; or to fight to seat the Florida and Michigan delegations, even though the Democratic National Committee has disqualified those states for holding their primaries too early.
She could, if she wanted to, force a floor flight at the convention; she would probably lose it. (She would have both the DNC and Obama forces ranged against her.) Win or lose, she would leave the party shattered.
Ms. Clinton is an honourable woman. She will use every means at her disposal to bring as many superdelegates as possible over to her side during the coming weeks. But if and when it becomes clear to her that the numbers simply aren't there, can't possibly ever be there, she will do the honourable thing, accept that last night was yet another defeat, and step aside.
