I can say I'm not that surprised by the results last night, aside from the huge margin in Rhode Island. Similar to Super Tuesday, Hillary scored an election night win which will look less and less commanding as time passes. But what happens now.
Phase one is the next week, with the Wyoming caucus (the last caucus before Puerto Rico), and the Mississippi Primary. Obviously, both of these are projected to be big Obama wins. If the margins are no closer than in similar states in the past, the idea that Clinton has momentum will be challenged, and Obama could very well erase whatever net delegate win Hillary actually received last night.
Then comes the 41-day "Pennsylvania interval," where my state actually gets to count in the primary process. I honestly cannot see Obama winning here, given the margins in Ohio. He will do better than Ohio, however, if only because I do not see the suburban counties surrounding Philly voting for Hillary by a wide margin - Obama may actually win these counties. My guess is she wins the state by around 5%, meaning any delegate margin she wins will be marginal
From then on in, Hillary's kinda fucked. My guess on how the states fall will be:
Obama: NC, OR, MT, SD - Four states worth 198 delegates
Clinton: Guam, WV, KY - Two states and a territory worth 81 delegates
Tossup: IN, PR - A state and a commonwealth worth 127 delegates
Please note that even if you consider both tossups to lean to Hillary (which is dumb in the case of Indiana, as the only polls have Obama ahead), then all the states she's likely to win have only ten delegates more than the states that Obama should win handily. The ultimate point is the final pledged delegate spread after all caucuses and primaries is unlikely to change much past Pennsylvania. If it changes at all, it's more likely to favor Obama than Hillary.
And so, I give you the potential scenarios of the remainder of the primary season:
Hillary or Obama implode and one or the other go on to win fairly cleanly. IMHO, this is very unlikely, as both campaigns have been through bad news cycles and survived thus far.
Status quo to the convention leading to an Obama win seems to be the most likely outcome now. Delegates will be traded back and forth, but the margin is unlikely to move more than 20 delegates in either direction, due to the huge run-up Obama had in February. Obama is the nominee, but the party is potentially divided, his negatives have gone way up due to Hillary attacks, and he is a far weaker candidate against McCain.
A Clinton win under dubious circumstances is just about the only sort of win I could see for her at this point. This would rely on not only dragging out the race, hoping Indiana falls her way, and closing Obama margins wherever possible, but interfering in the caucus process at state conventions, regaining a wide superdelegate lead, and finding some way to seat Florida and Michigan under the best math possible for her (meaning no uncommitted delegates in Michigan count for Obama). She would come out of this even more tarnished than Obama under the status-quo, and the party would likely be even more divided. It's hard to see how she'd get African-American turnout unless he was her running mate under these circumstances.
Either of the likely two outcomes is something that most superdelegates who want to see the party remain strong and win must dread. And that is why the superdelegates, ironically given their past slandering by Obama supporters, are now Obama's best hope of wrapping things up before the convention. If Obama has fifty of them in his pocket, he needs to have them endorse him at an opportune time. Right now would look weirdly anti-democratic for an en-masse endorsement, but a few should start to trickle out now, with a flood at a time it's opportune for his campaign.
Just my two cents. What do you guys think?