She's got three weeks left to pull it out. And that's the view of her own advisers. Clinton needs a big win in Pennsylvania to survive.
For Mrs. Clinton, all this has seemed something of a long shot since her defeats in February. But that shot seems to have grown a little longer.
Despite Mrs. Clinton’s last-minute trip to Michigan on Wednesday, Democrats there signaled that they are unlikely to hold a new primary. That apparently dashed Mrs. Clinton’s hopes of a new showdown in a state she feels she could win, and it left the state’s delegates in limbo.
The inaction in Michigan followed a similar collapse of her effort to seek another matchup with Mr. Obama in Florida, where, as in Michigan, she won an earlier primary held in violation of party rules.
Without new votes in Florida and Michigan, it will be that much more difficult for Mrs. Clinton to achieve a majority in the total popular vote in the primary season, narrow Mr. Obama’s lead among pledged delegates or build a new wave of momentum.
They were kind of counting on the Reverend Wright accusations to seal the deal.
Mrs. Clinton’s advisers had hoped that the uproar over inflammatory remarks made by Mr. Obama’s longtime pastor that has rocked his campaign for a week might lead voters and superdelegates to question whether they really know enough about Mr. Obama to back him. Although it is still early to judge his success, the speech Mr. Obama delivered on race in Philadelphia to address the controversy was well received and praised even by some Clinton supporters.
The strategy of the Clinton campaign has been to create an image of a campaign which is still highly competitive -- and many Hillary supporters really believe it is. But it's not -- not really.
It is in the interest of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign to portray the contest as being highly competitive. Her campaign is intent on combating Mr. Obama’s efforts to pick off superdelegates. And it is increasingly concerned that any sign that the window is closing could lead a Democrat like Al Gore or Speaker Nancy Pelosi to step in and urge Democrats to back Mr. Obama in the interest of unity.
Meanwhile, it looks as though Senator Obama's speech on race relations has found extraordinary resonance across the country and, of course, on the web.
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