Does another double-digit defeat mean that she’s nearly out?

With Wisconsin delivering another sharp blow to the Hillary campaign it is beginning to look as though this might soon be over. What was startling in the latest primary was the sheer scale of Obama’s victory which was well in excess of almost anything that had been predicted by the polls.

This suggests, as we have seen in the other post-Super Tuesday contests, that the Obama camp is much more effective at getting its vote out – a product, surely, of Hillary assuming that it would all be over on February 5th and not putting any real structure into the later states. What a huge strategic error?

As I write with 85% of the precincts reporting she is losing by 17 points – and this follows a campaign where they had thrown everything at the young senator from Illinois and had gone negative.

The Wisconsin victory margin means a bumper haul of delegates for Obama making Hillary’s task in her “firewall” states of Texas and Ohio even more demanding. Some commentators were suggesting that she needs to be winning there by 60-40 to get back into this.

One worrying statistic to come out of the exit polls was that 82% of all Democratic voters said they’d be happy if Obama won – but only 68% felt the same about Hillary. The speculation overnight was that without dramatic results on March 4th – Texas and Ohio – the party grandees will put pressure on Hillary to retire from this gracefully.

But it’s not over until it’s over. There’s the next debate with Obama in Austin, Texas tomorrow night and there are more primaries to come.

Inevitably in the betting the money has continued to pile on Obama who now stands at 0.28/1.

Mike Smithson