Chaos! II

Obama won North Carolina. Decisively. Even though CBS has called the Indiana contest for Hillary, the other networks are seeing it as too close to call.

This has not been a good night for Hillary to be sure. It's going to be difficult to spin a possible razor-thin victory in Indiana as a justification for the New York senator to stay in the race for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. But then again, Hillary is shameless. Watch as more superdelegates line up behind Obama starting tomorrow. If not sooner.

Even as I type this, Hillary is on TV giving a "victory" speech. What is it going to take for this woman to realize the party establishment doesn't want her and that the MSM have embraced Obama? Is Hillary's megalomania of such magnitude that she is willing to take the Democratic Party down if she is not nominated? Or is it coronated?

Surely Hillary is hanging her nomination chances on Michigan and Florida. As tempting as it may be for liberals to cheat by changing the rules, they can't afford the voter outrage and the PR nightmare that would surely follow if they were to seat the two delegations as they are currently. The truth is, Hillary is running out of options.

Salon.com is downplaying Rush Limbaugh's "Operation Chaos," the über radio talk-show host's effort to cause, well, chaos in the liberal nomination contest. Limbaugh has been urging Republicans to either register as Democrats or cross party lines and vote for Hillary Clinton in the primaries so as to keep the battle between the New York senator and Barack Obama going for as long as possible.

It seems to be working swimingly.

11:58 p.m.Update: Hillary's Indiana Lead Shrinking, Advisers Despondent

Clinton advisers acknowledged that the results of the primaries were far less than they had hoped, and said they were likely to face new pleas even from some of their own supporters for her to quit the race. They said they expected fund-raising to become even harder now; one adviser said the campaign was essentially broke, and several others refused to say whether Mrs. Clinton had loaned the campaign money from her personal account to keep it afloat.

The advisers said they were dispirited over the loss in North Carolina, after her campaign — now working off a shoestring budget as spending outpaces fund-raising — decided to allocate millions of dollars and full days of the candidate and her husband in the state. Even with her investment, Mr. Obama outspent Mrs. Clinton in both states.

Six hours after the polls closed in Indiana, the race remained too close to call. Results from Lake County — home to the city of Gary, just across the state line from Chicago — had not been reported. The delay meant that Mrs. Clinton did not appear on television until well after Mr. Obama, allowing him to put his stamp of victory on the evening.

Developing ...

12:45 a.m.: Hillary wins Indiana by the slimmest of margins. With 100% of precincts reporting, Hillary got 50.9% of the vote to Obama's 49.1%. That's a 1.8% difference, whereas the North Carolina results were more decisive for Obama: 56.2% to 41.5%.

Don't you quit on me now, Hillary. Operation Chaos must go on.