Democratic Nomination is now Barack Obama's to Lose

Hillary was blown away again last night when it was supposed to be her state. It is 10 straight victories (if he wins Washington it would be 11) for Obama. The only way the Clinton gang can win is by destroying the Illinois Senator, since the strategy to woo superdelegates might not work. They are desperate:

After 10 consecutive defeats — including a heartbreaker in tailor-made Wisconsin on Tuesday — Hillary Rodham Clinton can't win the nomination unless Obama makes a major mistake or her allies reveal something damaging about the Illinois senator's background. Don't count her out quite yet, but Wisconsin revealed deep and destructive fractures in the Clinton coalition.

It's panic-button time.

That explains why Clinton's aides accused Obama of plagiarism for delivering a speech that included words that had first been uttered by Deval Patrick, the Massachusetts governor and a friend of Obama. The charge bordered on the hypocritical — Clinton herself has borrowed Obama's lines — and by itself was unlikely to have an impact on the race.

[...]But her rival has won the most states, earned the most pledged delegates and has all the momentum. Clinton needs to win Ohio and Texas on March 4 — then Pennsylvania in April — to narrow Obama's lead among pledged delegates. Only then could she argue with a straight face that a majority of the nearly 800 free-roaming "superdelegates" should back her over Obama.

[...]In a sign of desperation, the Clinton camp floated the idea of poaching delegates that Obama earned via elections. While allowable under Democratic National Committee rules, the tactic would likely divide Democrats along racial lines and set the party back decades.

It would be the ultimate act of selfishness and foolishness. Even Clinton must realize there is little she can do to win the nomination. She can only help Obama lose it.

And all that the Clinton campaign can do is make unimportant charges and lie:

Hillary Clinton flatly denied that her campaign was attacking Barack Obama for using the words of another politician, telling reporters on Tuesday that her campaign had not made the charge. The Chicago Tribune reported her remarks from an interview with KITV in Honolulu on Tuesday:

[...]Clinton's claim is demonstrably false. Her campaign has aggressively and openly pushed the plagiarism attack, including a national conference call by senior campaign aides on Monday. Her aides also circulated a YouTube clip comparing footage of Obama and Gov. Deval Patrick.

Initially, Clinton operatives apparently did attempt to conceal their involvement. The first New York Times article about the clip reported[...]