MICKEY KAUS OFFERS a two-factor explanation for the Democratic primary results.
UPDATE: More thoughts from Robert Novak: “Buyer’s remorse was beginning to afflict supporters of Barack Obama before Tuesday’s primary election returns showed he had delivered a knockout punch against Hillary Clinton. The young orator who had seemed so fantastic, beginning with his 2007 Jefferson-Jackson dinner speech in Iowa, disappointed even his own advisers over the past two weeks, and old party hands mourned that they were stuck with a flawed candidate. . . . Clinton’s failure Tuesday was a product of demographics rather than Obama’s campaign skill. Consistently winning more than 90 percent of the African American vote, Obama is unbeatable in a primary where the black electorate is as large as it is in North Carolina (half the registered Democratic vote there). Indiana differed from seemingly similar Ohio and Pennsylvania, where Clinton scored big wins, because it borders Obama’s state of Illinois and many of its voters live in the Chicago media market.” Plus he got a lot of help from Lake County. On the other hand, Hillary got a lot of help from Rush Limbaugh, so maybe it evens out . . . .
ANOTHER UPDATE: More on Indiana from Rishawn Biddle: “The biggest mistake by Clinton was in presuming that Indiana was like just another Rust Belt state. The reality is that it is a microcosm of the entire nation, with the almost all the same socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. In some ways, its combination of rural and urban gives it more of a resemblance to nearby Illinois or New York than Ohio or Iowa. “