As expected following her blowout in NC and squeaker in IN:

The campaign is clearly running low on cash, although advisers would not say how much money - or how little - Mrs. Clinton currently has. The campaign had started April with over $10 million in unpaid debts, and Mrs. Clinton was vastly outspent by Senator Barack Obama in North Carolina and Indiana.

...

Mrs. Clinton had been increasingly relying on Internet donations this spring from new and small-amount contributors; the day after she won the April 22 Pennsylvania primary, the campaign brought in a record $10 million online. But Hassan Nemazee, one of Mrs. Clinton's national finance chairmen, put the amount she collected online in the 24 hours after the Indiana and North Carolina primaries at only "$1 million-plus."

...

Still, other top fund-raisers working for Mrs. Clinton said that enthusiasm among donors had fallen sharply and that they had little confidence there would be a financial turnaround. They said that some donors had questioned why they should give more money when another set of numbers - the calculus to win enough delegates for the nomination - seemed so against Mrs. Clinton at this point.

The one bright spot for Hillary is that the next two primaries are in extremely friendly Clinton territory. Check the map.

This Democratic presidential campaign has featured an unprecedented level of magma-hot coverage, most of it focused on tangential issues like gaffes, fluff, smears, pandering photo ops, and manufactured "scandals." Based on media coverage, the Reverend Wright affair is the granddaddy of them all.

Based on several factors, most decisively and recently Tuesday's Democratic Primary results, more and more voters are rejecting these less-than-relevant issues in favor of substance. Smart is back.

According to exit polls in both states, 48% of voters in each felt that the Wright issue was important, versus 50% who did not. Among black voters, the percentages were about the same, with 45% saying yes, it is important.

Senator Obama won North Carolina by 14% and closed an election-eve polling gap of 7% down to a razor-thin 2% margin in Indiana. If you factor in the "Limbaugh Effect," he wins Indiana by 5 points.

Looking at both sets of numbers, it is clear that if there is any "Wright Effect," it cuts both ways, and Obama's handling of the issue has become a net positive for him. Buttressing this view is another recent poll, in which 60% of voters approved of Obama's handling of the controversy, with only 23% disapproving. It is very likely that the disapprovers were never going to vote for him anyway.

In fact, it seems that Wright's re-emergence did Obama a favor, as his approval on the Wright issue climbed significantly since a March 27 Pew study following the first round of coverage, when 51% approved and 42% disapproved. Recent attempts to sink state candidates by linking them to Obama and Wright have also failed. If this issue keeps coming up, Obama could end up so popular that he starts bringing it up himself.

Meanwhile, especially in Indiana, the Clinton campaign made a fiercely aggressive play for voters on the issue of a gas tax holiday, concurrently opening up a lead there that peaked at 7%.

When Senator Clinton couldn't produce a single expert who agreed with the plan, against a unanimity of opinion among economists that the plan was, at best, ineffective and at worst a total disaster, she ran harder on the issue. Her campaign bragged about how they were connecting with uneducated, white, blue collar voters.

Now, most Americans don't like to be treated like they're stupid, and they damn sure don't like to be called stupid. Clinton's gains in Indiana evaporated, I believe, because when voters saw that the plan was unsound and unlikely to pass, yet Senator Clinton continued to push it, they felt their intelligence was being insulted. All the talk about simple folk eagerly gobbling up their best-case 5 buck a week tax crumbs, while their highways crumbled and thousands of construction workers were thrown out of work, made many of them feel condescended to, especially when asked to believe that the oil companies would eat the windfall tax offset without raising prices.

Is Reverend Who-emiah Whatzit still a problem? Now that the nomination is all but settled, and Hillary Clinton can turn her Eye of Mordor to John McCain? What she did to Obama was patty cakes compared to the whipping she's going to put on Mac and whatever poor, unfortunate soul becomes his running mate.

She won't even have to fight dirty. On her signature issue, health care, she's going to knock McCain's books out of his hand and stuff him in a locker.

On McCain's signature issue, National Security, she won't even have to go to the 100 years quote, she can just get a giant Magna-doodle and write 2 columns, real big: SUNNI and SHIA.

Where is Obama going to be during all of this mayhem? Praising McCain, thanking him for his service to our country, and explaining things like "the economy" to him.

They're going to mop the floor with him, then get started on the windows. And that's just on the substance!

Do I think the Yakov Smirnoff of political firestorms is a problem anymore? Really?

Based solely on the data, it is clearly not. Maybe there's an even more divisive figure that Americans want their next President to disassociate himself with: Our current one.

The first big superdelegate name to declare in the wake of Hillary Clinton's disappointing showing last night. Get ready. The flood is coming. Barack Obama heads to Washington D.C. tomorrow to talk to uncommitted superdelegates.

No doubt there are more than a few supers who'd like Hillary to make their decision a moot point. Geroge McGovern, the former Senator from South Dakota, as well as a former Hillary supporter and friend of the Clintons, doesn't appear to be content to wait.

McGovern had previously endorsed Clinton, so that means a loss in the superdelegate column for Hillary, and a pick-up for Obama. The message is pretty clear.

An e-mail from my colleague Liza Porteus Viana details McGovern's call-in appearance on MSNBC:

Not sure if you heard McGovern,

"I think the mathematics indicate Senator Obama is probably going to be the nominee. I have no regrets about Senator Clinton... but I think the time has come for democrats to unite and to get ready for a tough race this fall against Senator McCain. And that's why I'm hopeful that Senator Clinton will see fit fairly soon..."

He talked about his conversation with Bill Clinton, during which he announced his intention. Bill "of course wishes I had stayed with HIllary." But "we didn't have one single angry word." Bill did not admit Hillary's chances are next to impossible. "He recognizes it's a tough race but he didn't express any of those views."

Thanks Liza!

Update: Clinton gets a super of her own, post Indiana./N.C.

Good morning, bean counters! Yesterday, we examined the numbers heading in to last night's primaries. Today, here's where we stand.

Barack Obama increased his Pledged Delegate lead by 12, and now has a healthy 166 delegate cushion.

Superdelegates remain unchanged for the moment, but look for that number to rise in Obama's favor throughout the coming days.

Overall, Obama's edge over Hillary Clinton is roughly 150 delegates. Yesterday that number was 138.

There are now just 217 pledged delegates up for grabs for the 6 remaining contests. In fact, for the first time in the race, there are now more undecided superdelegates than there are unallocated pledged delegates.

In terms of the popular vote, a metric used to try and woo superdelegates, Obama nearly erased Clinton's gains in Pennsylvania. With 99% of precincts reporting, he won North Carolina by 232,775 votes while Clinton won Indiana by 22,412. That's a 210,363 net vote gain for Obama. He now leads Clinton by 2.2 million votes. Even if you factor in Florida, Obama still leads by 1.2 million votes.

Today's dispassionate math problem is pretty simple:

Over or not over? I'm going to say... not over, but by any rights it should be. Final count in IN shows a Clinton victory, barely. And of course the dreadful drubbing she took in Indiana. Which means that Obama beat the line. According to the analysis by Jay Cost, Clinton did as well in IN as she did in OH with her constituent groups, but Obama has solidified his hold on the black vote and college educated whites.

Theres good news, but mostly bad news in there for Hillary. She has an argument that she can make that no Democrat can win on the strength only of the black vote and suburban college educated liberals, but that means the Democratic party would have to disenfranchise the driving force of their liberal base along with their most solid minority group. I can't imagine, even in the most brass knuckle politics environment, that scenario playing out. I think she's done. Whether she wants to accept it or not is another question.

One reason she may not accept it is that two very friendly Clinton states are coming up, WV and KY, both with heavy Appalachian contingents. She should blow out Obama here and if she does, she can make the electability argument again, although most electoral paths to victory for Democrats do not include Kentucky.

Let the rumor mongering begin. At 2am a report went out on ABC that she had cancelled all events and cleared her schedule, but as of this morning it appears a full campaign schedule is still in place.

I watched Obama give the speech of his political life Tuesday night, full of soaring platitudes. He's so good at the speechifying, I shudder to think of McCain (or Hillary) getting within an order of magnitude of his raw talent in the matter.

Maybe it was just pent up frustration, because I'm sure he's been wanting to give that speech ever since Super Tuesday, but unfortunately Hillary kept. On. Winning. Even after it was supposed to be long over. But tonight, with an overwhelming victory in North Carolina (nearly 16 points at this point) and even a chance at winning Indiana (a few points down and closing fast), he finally has the opportunity to give the big general election speech.

Key phrase: "This has been one of the longest campaigns in Democratic primary history." Note the use of the words "has been." As in, it's over now. Where he goes from here is easy, he can simply assume the mantle of the winner. Be gracious in victory, and let the chips fall. Most Democrats, it now seems clear, while they may be nervous about his chances, their hearts really are with him, and they really do not like Hillary. I now expect a full stampede of superdelegates, making this a fait accompli. I do not expect the Democratic leadership to risk outrage in the ranks in order to reinstall Hillary Clinton. He didn't collapse in the face of the Wright scandal. He's not John Kerry (at least in the speech making) and so, he's good enough to be the front man.

For Hillary it's gut check time, but I'll save that for another post.

Full text of the thread after the jump, updates here:

0:10AM OK, ladies and germs, I'll be signing off now. Thanks for joining me. Keep talking, and I'll check back here tomorrow. Kat, you hang in there, and don't let anybody rub it in. O, it's time to make nice. Tom, John, nice commentary tonight. MG, so quiet tonight. Diana says "hi!"

Russert just compared Hillary to an aging ballplayer, an analogy I thought of earlier. I hope tomorrow is Hillary's "Lou Gehrig Day," and not the start of a "Vegas Elvis" phase, to mix a metaphor. Good night, everybody!

11:33PM OK, I don't think much is going to change in NC. I closing, I was just talking to Diana, and we agreed that it looks like the Supes will fall to Obama, and I was saying, "Yeah, but the wild card here is that they're Democrats, y'know?" and she said, "Yeah, they could spoil a wet dream."

Funny, and true. The herd of cats needs to get its stuff together quickly and not let Hillary twist in the wind. They need to announce the ticket quickly.

11:02PM That's more like it! I just got an email from the Clinton Press Office. A memo called "Tie-breaker," a very long one.

10:58PM Famous last words:

On May 2, Hillary told a rally in Kinston, NC the following:

"This primary election on Tuesday is a game changer. This is going to make a huge difference in what happens going forward. The entire country--probably even a lot of the world is looking to see what North Carolina decides."

10:56PM Classy speech. It reminded me of her Texas speech after South Carolina.

10:55PM NC is at 56-42 for Obama.

10:53PM Another shift in rationale: Now, Red states matter.

10:52PM Chelsea!!!... Doesn't this sound like a curtain call?

10:49PM Evan Bayh is another guy who didn't call me back today. Does anyone still care what Rendell's press secretary told me?

Via First Read:

Clinton leads Obama in the Superdelegate category by 16.5

As far as Pledged Delegates, Obama leads Clinton by 154

Overall, Obama leads Clinton by 138.5 delegates.

There are 187 delegates up for grabs in tonight's primaries. Liza Porteus Viana will live-blog the Indiana results, while Tommy Christopher will keep a running tab on the doings in North Carolina. See you tonight for all the nail-biting fun.

In the possible last (in)significant primary season edition of "prediction folly," we're gonna go out with a bang. After the jump, we have an uber-big prediction. It's mostly folly, but you won't know until it doesn't happen!

Today, the states of Indiana and North Carolina gather to cast their primary votes in the Democrat contest. For Hoosiers, the polls close at 7pm EST and for Tar Heelers they close at 7:30pm EST.

The polls are literally no help. They range from mega-leads for Barack Obama in both states, to Hillary Clinton narrowly pulling it out in either. Campaigns literally have a buffet of numbers to pick for backing of their particular arguments.

So it's up to the voters...those brave souls inside the voting booths to make their choice!