Is Hillary Done?

As midnight approached, things were looking worse and worse for Hillary Clinton and CBS.

For Hillary, what had looked like a modest win in Indiana, badly needed to offset Barack Obama's blowout in North Carolina, had turned into a cliffhanger. In fact, let the record show that at 12:11 a.m., Tim Russert awarded the nomination to Obama: "We now know who the Democratic nominee is going to be, and no one is going to dispute it." (I suspect the second part of that statement is wrong.)

"PRESUMPTIVE NOMINEE" blared the pro-Obama Huffington Post.

CBS, meanwhile, was the only network hanging out there with a projection that Hillary would take Indiana, made at the early hour of 8 p.m. What happened to the caution that all the networks promised us after 2000? Brit Hume wondered on Fox whether "there's some tightening in the blood veins of some of those people over there." That was doubly true when late votes from the Gary area cut her lead from 40,000 to 20,000, and then to 16,000.

Well, CBS dodged a bullet. All the cable networks awarded Hillary the Hoosier state at 1:09 a.m., by what looked like a two-point margin. For most eastern newspapers, the headlines would say too close to call.

In a nutshell: After a month of horrible coverage for Obama, the Jeremiah Wright debacle and the caricaturing of the candidate as an elitist, he nonetheless managed to fight Clinton to a virtual dead heat in a state in which she had been favored. All the media chatter about how Hillary had found her voice, won the hearts of the working class and captured the momentum didn't amount to squat. Whether she won Indiana by a few thousand votes was, by that time, beside the point.

Have I mentioned lately that the commentators have been consistently wrong in this campaign?

Clinton had claimed victory in her speech--indeed, Obama had conceded Indiana minutes earlier--but it may have been a pyrrhic victory at best.

Many of the pundits were in obituary mode. On Fox, Bill Kristol said there would be private conversations to orchestrate "a graceful ending to this race." The MSNBC gang was off on a discussion of who would be Obama's running mate. CNN was more cautious, with Anderson Cooper saying, "It's too early to be talking about Hillary Clinton in the past tense." But Carl Bernstein said two Hillary advisers had told him she would try for the vice presidency.

It was noteworthy that Obama, in his speech, shifted to a unity appeal, saying he didn't believe "the pundits"--everyone's favorite whipping boy--that the race is permanently dividing the party, despite "bruised feelings" on both sides. That suggests he sees the prize as within reach. Even more interesting, after many (mostly unfounded) attacks on his patriotism, Obama talked about "the America I love" and "American values" and "the promise of America" and "the flag draped over my father's coffin." He was sending a star-spangled message.

When Hillary spoke, a dejected-looking Bill Clinton stood to her right. And Hillary made a point of thanking him and daughter Chelsea--giving the air of a valedictory speech--before the ritual incantation that she intends to win in November.

Hillary canceled her morning show appearances, and Matt Lauer led "Today" this way: "Good morning. Is it over?"