Spin Cycle

Hillary, in her speech, said, "The tide is turning."

Is it?

Right now, the margin is hovering between 7 and 8 percent, and both campaigns are raising money off of tonight's result. That's right where the polls had it, and it's short of the margin she achieved in Ohio.

Obama had more money. But he also had Wright and Bittergate, while Hillary had better demographics than Ohio, the support of the governor and the mayors of the two biggest cities, and started out with a 10 to 20 point margin. So in a rough sense, the money balanced off her advantages. The delegate math won't change much at all, and Obama's popular vote margin will be trimmed by about 160,000 but remain over 600,000.

Nonetheless: This was significant.

It gives her an opportunity to raise money. She asked for help in the speech, and her success in the next 72 hours will be a key test.

Second, it establishes the argument that white, blue-collar voters are suspicious of Obama, uncomfortable with him, which makes him a risk in the fall. That is her argument to superdelegates.

Third, it puts the ball in Obama's court. Controversies over Wright, "bittergate" and his Weatherman acquaintance, combined with another demographic schism with white blue-collar voters, have begun to put him in the pigeonhole of a liberal wine-track candidate. He can't cede the center to her -- he has to break out of the box.

The primary season has had a series of phony tests. In Ohio and Pennsylvania, she had huge leads. The next primaries -- in Indiana and North Carolina -- really are critical tests. If Clinton can sustain this momentum -- winning Indiana, making NC very close -- superdelegates may begin to listen to her electability argument.

If Obama breaks it again, her task will be pretty much impossible.