Spin Cycle

A lot of the day was spent by reporters looking for signs that the end is near, but the end of the day looks murky:

Obama, who has been trying to get enough superdelegate endorsements to declare victory tomorrow, now seems to be saying that a lot of superdelegates will be waiting until after tomorrow's primaries. Chief Clinton delegate man Harold Ickes, in a conference call with restive donors, also says Obama won't hit his mark tomorrow and insists the fight isn't over, with some donors calling for a fight till August.

But Obama backer Sen. Claire McCaskill says Obama will have enough based on her conversations with uncommitteds. There's an effort underway to get all 17 uncommitted Dem senators to jump at once (led by Tom Harkin) and networks report various bunches of House members ready to jump.

For her part, Clinton, in South Dakota, says she plans on a few days of calling superdelegates, in which she will apparently to continue to make the same misleading assertions privately that she has become accustomed to shouting into microphones:

"We have won the popular vote which best represents the will of the people, more people have voted for me than any other candidate in the history of presidential primaries."

And: "Tomorrow is the last day of the primaries and the beginning of a new phase in the campaign. After South Dakota and Montana vote I will lead in the popular vote and Senator Obama will lead in the delegate count. The voters will have voted and so the decision will fall to the delegates empowered to vote at the Democratic Convention."

The facts, which must be repeated:

Hillary does not lead in the popular vote by any measure other than her own idiosyncratic belief that Florida should count even though it didn't and hundreds of thousands of Floridians didn't vote because they were told it wouldn't; that Puerto Rico should count even though Puerto Ricans can't vote in the general election ("lead us to victory in November"???); that Michigan should also count even though it didn't and thousands of Michiganders didn't vote because they were told it wouldn't and she was the only person on the ballot; that Obama should get zero votes -- Zero!!! -- from Michigan; and that Obama also should get no votes from four states that he won, because they held caucuses and didn't count the popular vote.

See the numbers here. Win or lose, the Clintons clearly intend to imprint this canard on the race -- Hillary is the strongest ever, the smartest ever, the toughest ever and the most popular ever.

It is simply not true.