I've been a lot angrier than I like to be over the past few days. More than anything, Hillary's effusive praise of McCain, one of the most myopic and bizarre strategies of her campaign, pushed me over the edge. I assumed—foolishly, I see now—that Hillary saw herself as a Democrat first and a candidate second. How wrong I was. It's clear that she is happy to frame the race around Commander in Chief credentials and her "lifetime of experience" if that framing will let her damage Obama enough to win the nomination, even though doing so will set the Democratic nominee up for devastating attacks by McCain. "Commander in Chief," "experience," and "phone calls in a dangerous world"? This McCain's dream come true. No buts about it; Hillary is already throwing the Democratic party under the bus to get the nomination, and in the process smearing one of its most effective and promising political stars.

Part of what makes this most frustrating is the impotence that accompanies my anger. No doubt that's true for all of us. I want to ask Hillary how she can possibly say things like this, over and over again, in good conscience. But of course I'll never get that opportunity. There is one thing we can do, however. Give money to Obama. I despise what Hillary has done in the past few days, and my displeasure will be evidenced by my donations to Obama this month. So go to barackobama.com, open your wallet, and feel a little less impotent. It helps. Trust me.

Obama is offering us something extraordinary this election cycle. From this—exactly what Hillary is doing right now—Obama offers a reprieve. From falsified charges about "NAFTA-gate" and mischaracterized quotes about withdrawal from Iraq. From those who didn't take a stand on our horrifying adventure into Iraq. From Democrats as nothing more than Democrats and Republicans as nothing more than Republicans. From those politicians who believe they—only they and not the people—are the ones for whom the messy machinery of democracy operates. Obama, Kansan and Kenyan, American and international, community organizer and trailblazer and a man whose campaign demonstrates every day the incredible potential of a people-powered movement for hope and change and unity in 21st century America.

Take a deep breath, think about what this campaign means, and give.

In short, I'm not really sure.  But here's the long version:

The results from last night can't be meaningfully analyzed until we get some more polling from the rest of this week.  The fact of the matter is that, at some point last week, Obama came dangerously close to snapping up a victory in Texas, perhaps even in Ohio, and knocking Hillary out of the race.  At the same time, it's clear that Hillary was able to reverse the trend.  But in looking at the big picture, we need to remember that the Clinton campaign categorized Ohio and Texas as firewalls.  After Wisconsin, Obama dug deep into Hillary's Ohio lead, and brought Texas within a mere three points.  We know that the delegates from this are more or less going to wash out, and that doesn't simply cut it for Hillary.  This unquestionably leaves Obama as the frontrunner (and still with a distinct advantage), but the real question now is if the reversal of Obama momentum continues.  This reminds me a lot of Super Tuesday, when we saw a putative victory for Hillary that actually left Obama quite nicely positioned for the coming campaign.  The fact Hillary nearly lost of one of her "firewall" states is clearly getting overshadowed by the turnaround in Obama momentum, just as on Super Tuesday Obama's string of high-profile endorsements overshadowed the fact that a couple weeks prior he had been down by huge margins in many of the states Hillary carried and was in fact grabbing huge chunks of her support.  What was then characterized as a Hillary victory in fact masked a bigger picture of growing Obama momentum.

It is abundantly clear from the numbers that Hillary won't come close to taking a pledged delegate lead without some kind of an Obama implosion.  Her only hope now is to either (a) wait it out for such an implosion, or (b) try to gain enough momentum to gain a nationwide Democratic polling advantage in hopes it will outweigh her pledged delegate deficit at the convention.  I don't think a series of 3% margin victories, like Texas, are going to do it for Hillary.  One also has to wonder if the demotion of Patti Solis Doyle and her replacement by Maggie Williams is bearing fruit.  It seems that by all accounts Maggie Williams is far more capable.

In short, the real question is whether we should look at this from a four-week perspective (with Obama making huge inroads to Hillary's support in Texas or Ohio) or a week-and-a-half perspective (with Hillary fighting back an Obama upset).  And I think we need another week or so of polling before we can decide which view is more accurate.