The people don't want this primary to end, and that's a rejection of Obama...

No matter how Jerid, Tim, or the rest of the Obama crew wants to spin this, if the polls are any indication of what we can expect tonight this is an absolutely failure of the Obama campaign to put the nomination to bed. Just a few days ago, Jerid was claiming that Obama's internals showed him winning Ohio beyond the margin of error. But then real polling came out and it showed Clinton, not Obama surging, why? Obama then quietly slinked out of the state leaving us nothing more than a two-minute cookie cutter infomercial that had the same message in both Texas and Ohio.

Jerid and Tim are desparate to convince themselves and the world that it's because anyone who votes for Hillary does so because they're racists.  Will Obama do poorly in SEO?  Of course, he will, but it's not because (as Jerid suggests) because of the Muslim rumors.  It's because Obama has barely campaigned there while the Clinton campaign invested alot of time in an area that is Ted Strickland country where his endorsement carries the most weight.  And that's why Obama will do poorly in SEO (with the exception of Athens County.)

People in Texas and Ohio know that a vote for Obama is a vote to end the primary campaign.  And all the polling shows that the late deciding voters are breaking to Clinton.  You can't read that any other way other than people are not ready to hand the nomination to Obama.

Obama outspent Clinton four to one, even though he hasn't been outfundraising her by that margin.  That means the Obama campaign had a high burn rate and was trying to end this campaign under a mountain of cash.  On top of that, Obama-supporting unions outspent Clinton-alligned organizations by a five to one spending ratio.  And ACORN provided Obama's campaign with a free, in-kind contribution of its GOTV effort.  Obama led in the national polls by double-digits and had over a hundred delegate lead.  He's gotten practically every endorsement over the past month and had the momentum of his prior 11 straight victories.

So why is Obama going to lose tonight, if not racism?  One, the Ohio debate helped.  After the debate, health care became the top concern of Ohio Democratic primary voters and a definate preference for Hillary's proposal over Obama's began to surface (see, SurveyUSA poll.)

The other is the issue of NAFTA.  Obama's campaign thought they could tap into Ohio's voters instinctive hatred of NAFTA as an effective foil against Clinton.  And, at first, it worked well.  But as people began to actually explore the Obama side of the equation it became clear that Obama was trying to dress his Hillary Clinton-esque record on trade in Sherrod Brown rhetoric.  And when caught in it, Obama suddenly looked like a typical politician and his entire mystique as a "new kind of politics" crumbled.  That's why the Canadian embassy story was important.  It brought up the fact that Obama's real record on trade, and NAFTA in particular, was not one of consistently opposing it.  Just like Clinton, Obama had actually praised NAFTA as a positive economic achievement in prior campaigns.  It softened Obama's image as a protectionist.

The "3 a.m." ad also worked.  Hearing the Obama supporters whine about how unfair it was reminded me (and I'm sure others) of the whining of the Kerry campaign in 2004 and how ineffective it was.  Ironically, some Obama-supporting bloggers posted or referred to what Bill Clinton said at the time.  And if you remembered only the words, then it was powerful.  But I was reminded that Bill Clinton's argument didn't work, and Kerry lost because he was too busy whining how unfair the attacks were rather than going on the offensive.  And I think people began to wonder if Obama was this ineffective against Hillary Clinton, how is he going to be any better against McCain who obviously will use his commander-in-chief rhetoric as a centerpiece of his campaign?

The Washington Post has a poll out today that finds that two-thirds of Democrats believe Hillary should continue her campaign if she wins either Ohio or Texas.  And yet, Obama's people will scream about the delegate math for Clinton.  Well, let me tell you something about that.  You have to look at the whole equation and take into consideration Obama's path to the nomination after today.  And when you do that, you realize that it's the same path as Clintons.  Neither candidate will have enough pledge delegates to secure the nomination and will need to reply on a heavy advantage of superdelegates to win.

The votes haven't even been countered, and Jerid already has put up multiple posts as to why Clinton should drop out.

Maybe we'd all be better served if we listened to the majority of our fellow Democrats who voted not to end this nomination battle today instead of writing them off as misinformed racists.

And maybe we should start to question why we should nominate a candidate who couldn't win the key battleground state of Ohio despite getting all the media endorsements, outspending his opponent four-to-one, two key union endorsements, and a national lead in the polls.