As some of you may have figured out by now, my regular work day in New York is Wednesday, which is why I have not been able to post anything on that day. So, first....

The results from the Virginia, Maryland and D.C primaries show one thing that is more important than simply the fact that Obama won them all and won them big. As is now being generally recognized, Obama is starting to win over those groups who had previously been supporting Hillary Clinton. In the early contests, Obama was doing well with African-Americans and with highly educated, upper-income white voters. Clinton was doing well with older voters, those with incomes under $50,000, and with women. That base of support is eroding, and with surprising speed. The realization that the nomination may be slipping away is driving the turmoil inside the Clinton campaign, as well as creating an atmosphere inside the punditocracy that Obama will be the Democratic nominee. For instance, Dick Morris says Hillary will lose. John Heilemann writes that her outlook is bleak. The team at MSNBC First Read says that the math is starting to look very difficult for Clinton. All of these folks, and many more (me included) who are political geeks of the highest order and pay close attention to these things, are coming to the same conclusion. While it is not impossible for Hillary to take this thing in the end, especially with all of those super delegates still out there and with the possibility that it is those delegates who will decide the nomination, more and more it looks like Obama will be the nominee. Ohio and Texas loom as Hillary's Waterloo. She needs to win both by large margins to restore the argument that she is best suited to be the nominee.

But, isn't it possible that she and her husband will, by hook and by crook, grab the necessary super delegates to win? Yes. Of course, I can think of nothing that would better ensure a GOP victory in the Fall than to have Obama win a plurality of the popular votes in the Democratic primaries and caucuses, and a plurality of the pledged delegates, only to lose the nomination because party leaders chose Hillary. Not only would her nomination galvanize Republicans to work for the election of John McCain, if for no other reason than to make sure Clinton is defeated, it would also dispirit and discourage all of those voters who were inspired by Obama. If I can see that scenario, surely the majority of the super delegates can see it, as many of them are politicians themselves.

In an important, but unrelated, matter, someone managed to plant a bomb that blew up one of the world's most notorious terrorists. Imad Mugniyah was suspected of planning the 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Beirut, the 1986 TWA hijacking that resulted in the murder of a Navy diver, and a whole slew of heinous crimes in the years since then. The man was thought by both his followers and his adversaries to be a terrorist genius. So, in terms of the on-going war against these people, their side has been struck a grevious blow. Did the Israelis do it? The Americans? How did they manage to pull it off in Syria? Did the Syrians rat him out? Perhaps, someday, we'll learn the truth and be able to celebrate the names of the heroes who won this particular battle in this long war.