Wow, what a night!

For those of you on the East Coast who faded off to sleep before Indiana was finally called for Hillary Clinton, you missed the political equivalent of an underdog basketball team making an 11 point run after trailing by 12 with a minute and a half left in the game.

Obama didn't pull off the upset, but he made everyone in the arena bite their finger nails and sit on the edges of their seats until he put up a last second shot in Gary, Indiana that rattled around the rim before finally falling out as the buzzer sounded.  It was intense.

Fortunately for Barack however, a third item can be added to that famous list which contains horseshoes and hand grenades; the Democratic nominating process.

Obama got close enough, and as I said in the "North Carolina Surprise" post a couple of days ago, if this exact situation occurred on May 6^th it would be good enough to end this campaign.  So far the early indicators are supporting this theory.

Clinton vowed to keep fighting on to West Virginia, Kentucky and Oregon in her speech last night in Indiana, but what else was she going to do?  Until she drops out, she has to say she'll continue fighting.  To use her promise to carry on as evidence that she is not considering an exit at this point is naive.

That being said, some have also argued that Clinton's pitch to her supporters to send more money is an indication that she is going to keep fighting.  The fact is she has loaned the campaign $5 million of her own money.  There are rumors that she may have thrown in another chunk of cash recently as well.  Either way, her campaign is in debt and she needs to attempt to recover some of that.

Campaign etiquette dictates that it is ok to ask supporters to help bail a candidate out of debt even after the race is over, but it is far more difficult to raise money as the former candidate than as The Candidate. 

So there is plenty of motivation for Sen. Clinton to carry on fundraising and campaigning at least for a couple of days. 

Of course much of the media is trying to squeeze every last drop of lemonade out of this campaign lemon so they're unlikely to see it this way.  In fact, Dan Abrams laid into Lawrence O'Donnell during MSNBC's post-game coverage last night, when O'Donnell suggested Clinton's speech was really more of a concession speech than a victory speech.

Abrams called O'Donnell cynical and made an on-the-fly argument that Clinton is not planning to exit the race.  Put me in that cynical group also Mr. Abrams.  Hillary's speech provided clues that support O'Donnell's case.

For starters, Bill Clinton's red face said a lot.  I have no idea if it was just sunburn from all the campaigning he did in North Carolina during the last 48 hours or if he had just finished off the rest of that bottle of Crown Royal that Hillary took a shot from in Crown Pointe earlier in the week.

The former President looked angry and detached.  The only time he perked up was when Hillary mentioned Chelsea.  The proud father lit up upon hearing his daughter being praised and cheered for.  Other than that it was clear that Bill's mind was wandering to something else as Hillary spoke. 

Feel free to insert your own 1998 Monica Lewinski joke here.

The second major clue Sen. Clinton left us with last night was that despite dropping in at least one more wildly misleading statement, she toned down the rhetoric significantly.  There were no attacks on Obama, or even any tough anti-McCain arguments.

She even went so far as to say she would support the nominee "no matter what happens."  She has said this before, but she has shied away from saying it during speeches to friendly crowds.

In addition to Clinton's speech clues, there have been rumors that Clinton's inner circle has been working on an exit strategy for quite some time now.  It was reported on MSNBC last night that there are several members of Clinton's inner circle who are prepared to have an honest and straightforward discussion with Hillary convincing her that it is time "to fold."

Over the next several days the superdelegate flood will begin washing Hillary Clinton out of this race.  She may continue to fight, but it won't be with the same divisiveness with which she has fought up until this point.

Her scorched earth policy failed and any continuation of that is going to have more of a negative impact on her than it will on Obama.  

So while Barack Obama will spend the coming days and weeks deciding who his Vice Presidential candidate will be, Clinton will begin crafting a graceful exit strategy and try to figure out what her next step will be.

It is all but official now, Hillary Clinton is done and Barack Obama is the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party.

Last night was a major victory for Barack Obama, but more importantly it was a victory for change over politics as usual.  In his best line of the night, and maybe even of the whole campaign so far, Barack Obama said "I didn't get into this race thinking that I could avoid this kind of politics, but I am running for President because this is the time to end it!" 

Sen. Obama, last night you took a giant step towards ending it; thank you.

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