Hillary Clinton put on a strong facade last night as she cheered supporters on in Indiana, but it's the cancelation of all public appearances today (reported by Talking Points Memo) and the anointment of Obama as nominee by Tim Russert, Matt Drudge, and MSNBC's Chuck Todd that have people wondering about the direction the Clinton campaign will take next.
Obama won a 14-point victory in North Carolina, and lost by just 23,000 votes in Indiana.
The Washington Post reports: “Both candidates looked ahead to contests next week in West Virginia and May 20 in Oregon and Kentucky, but Clinton was nearly out of opportunities to change the course of the race. ‘We have seen that it's possible to overcome the politics of division and distraction, that it's possible to overcome the same old negative attacks that are always about scoring points and never about solving our problems,' Obama said at a victory rally in Raleigh, North Carolina. The Illinois senator's 14-point victory in North Carolina was a dramatic comeback from a difficult campaign stretch that began last month with a big loss in Pennsylvania and was prolonged by the controversy over racially charged comments by his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.”
The NYT reports: “The results from the two primaries, the largest remaining Democratic ones, assured that Mr. Obama would widen his lead in pledged delegates over Mrs. Clinton, providing him with new ammunition as he seeks to persuade Democratic leaders to coalesce around his campaign. He also increased his lead in the popular vote in winning North Carolina by more than 200,000 votes.”
The candidates' speeches, below:
Russert told Keith Olbermann: “We now know who the Democratic nominee is going to be, and no one is going to dispute it.”
Watch that clip, AFTER THE JUMP…
Additional reading
Reality Has Well-Known Obama Bias [huffington post]
If You Want to Crown Him [shakesville]
An obituary for the Clinton campaign [daily voice]
