The general consensus seems to be that last night's results settled the Democratic nomination fight. But I'm not exactly sure why that is.

For months now--since South Carolina--it has been pretty obvious which states Obama would win and which Clinton would carry. It seemed clear all along that Obama would win North Carolina comfortably and that Clinton would take Indiana by a close margin. And that's what happened yesterday. So why all the talk about how the race is finished now? Look: If you believed that the nomination fight was signed, sealed, and delivered before yesterday, that's a perfectly reasonable position and the results only confirm your theory. After all, because of the way Democrats apportion delegates, the pledged delegate lead has been out of Clinton's reach since early February--something everyone watching the campaign has long understood. But if you thought that Clinton had a small, but viable, chance to sway superdelegates at the convention by making the case of a popular vote victory, then I'm not sure how last night changed anything.

In other words, it's not clear how yesterday changes anything. The candidates performed roughly to expectations and the next three weeks are going to be a gauntlet for Obama as he gets clobbered in one place after another--all while being touted as "The Nominee." What has been Clinton's gambit since February--her attempt to be leading at least two of the popular vote counts by the time of the convention--will finally be given the chance to mature as she has a string of contests with very favorable demographics. It seems to me that there's no reason for her to quit now and every reason for her to stay in the race. And that this gambit has as much chance of succeeding today as it did on Monday.

The future direction of the Supreme Court is very much at stake in this November’s presidential election. The two or three justices most likely to depart the Court over the next four years -- Justice Stevens, Justice Ginsburg, and possibly Justice Souter -- are liberal judicial activists who routinely read their own policy preferences into the Constitution and who selectively regard their own favored precedents as sacrosanct. If a President Obama or a President Clinton names their successors, the slender operating majority on the Court for liberal activist results on most contentious political issues is likely to be preserved for at least another generation. By contrast, a president committed to nominate, and fight for, justices who will practice judicial restraint offers real hope that the Court may soon be restored to its proper role in our constitutional system. In his speech today, John McCain has provided encouraging evidence that he would be that president. One speech, of course, does not a campaign -- or a Supreme Court appointment -- make. John McCain needs to continue to make the case for judicial restraint and to draw the stark contrast between his views and his Democratic opponent’s on the proper role of the judiciary. If elected, he will need to populate key judge-picking positions -- including the White House counsel and the attorney general -- with experienced advisers committed to his stated goals. (We would rest easier if he threw out a few names now.) And he will need to be ready to devote a lot of political capital to defeat intransigent Democratic opposition in the Senate. Conservatives, for their part, need to do what we can to help McCain live up to his promises.

Fed up with politicians incapable of balancing budgets? Well, now state legislatures across the country want to take a crack at balancing your checkbook – whether you like it or not.

Paternalism – the idea that government must take care of adults because they aren't able to do so themselves – is the ideology behind the wave of politicians determined to limit how much and how often Americans can borrow money. By putting stringent restrictions on borrowing, these politicians would effectively ban the practice of short-term "payday" lending, no matter how many people use it responsibly in times of crisis.

For those who enjoy access to high lines of credit, these short-term loans – which essentially let customers borrow cash from their next paycheck – may be a bad deal. But many of the less prosperous don't have such attractive alternatives to the kind of loans that politicians like to demonize.

A couple of related predictions:

1) If Hillary wins by double digits in Indiana and squeaks out a victory in North Carolina, she will give the Democratic super-delegates much to ponder. Pat Caddell observed after the Lioness’ most recent victories, “The nomination process is not a suicide pact.” Caddell can't be the only Democratic poobah harboring such sentiments.

2) If the super-delegates do take a fresh look at Hillary while simultaneously deciding that Obama is too weak a candidate to take a flyer on in a year that should be a slam dunk for the Democratic party, Hillary's strange new respect from the right will have a life expectancy best measured in hours as opposed to weeks or months

Snobbery and the resentment of snobbery (and it is really snobbery, and not elitism as such, that we have all been discussing) are always going to exist in societies with significant upward social mobility.  The more opportunities available to people through merit (or at least largely through merit), the more pretensions the arrivistes will put on to demonstrate that they do, in fact, belong in their new status group.  Snobbery may not be limited to arrivistes, which is to say those who have succeeded in making their own way, but I suspect it is most obvious among these people, because they are the ones who most have to prove that they have adopted the mentality associated with their new status and their new peers.  

Evidently, there are a lot of people on the left who find the controversy over Obama’s San Francisco remarks absolutely infuriating because he ”told the truth” and is being punished for it, but for everyone else the remarks were not just condescending–they were insulting because they were false.  More than that, a politician presumed to know why people did or believed certain things, when he probably cannot know their motives and, more importantly, shouldn’t care.  In an election, it is the politician’s motives, his beliefs, that are at issue.  The pol is the one who is supposed to be scrutinised by the voters, not vice versa.