Wisdom Wednesday, Part 2

The media narrative seems to be that the results of Tsunami Tuesday mean the Democratic race is even. Obama won more states but Clinton won bigger states--but Obama won more delegates. That's not final yet, but consider two days ago a media maven was saying that if Hillary won by fewer than 200 delegates it would be a loss for her, and the Obama campaign said their goal was to win within 100 delegates of Clinton.

As California votes were counted, Obama lost by about 9 points. There is a lot of controversy within the state about independent (no preference) voters not getting to vote, because of various screwups at the polls. Our Secretary of State (Debra Bowen) got elected on her strong record for voting rights, so we'll see how this plays out.

But not everybody was buying into this master narrative--the Field blog has a photo of the cover on the Philadephia Daily News: a photo of Obama and headline: Our Next President.

But as Obama warned last night, it's not going to be easy. The revelation today that Hillary lent $5 million to her campaign for Tsunami Tuesday--which means it's already been spent--is a bit shocking. This Times story makes the situation sound dire. I can't believe her campaign won't raise some money on the basis of her big state wins, and I'll be interested to see if the frenetic pace of Obama's incoming contributions continues. But Obama has more potential for raising money, and more time to campaign in the states with upcoming primaries or caucuses or--in Texas--a combination of the two, on the same day.

Hillary has to at least compete in the contests this month to stay viable. If she's forced by funds to adopt an Ohio firewall strategy, and that doesn't work, it could be over for her by Pennsylvania. And PA in April is looming large. With the endorsement of its governor, she looks to have the advantage--but I'll have to check with my expert PA source.

But let's not neglect what Obama accomplished yesterday. He continues to increase his proportion of the vote in all or nearly all groups (the exception may be Asian Americans). He demonstrated beyond doubt that he can win white votes--he actually got more white votes in California than Hillary. In some places, he got 44% of the Latino vote.

But of course, these categories are only after the fact analyzes--they aren't necessarily why people vote for somebody. I suspect a lot of folks in Los Angeles voted the way their employers suggested.