Does she have to drop out.  Of course not.  Should she.  I'm not sure.  What does seem clear to me is that Obama is almost certainly the nominee.  The process of bringing the party back to together needs to start and it needs to start with Obama.  No matter what happens from here on out he needs to do nothing that even faintly sounds like a negative attack and he needs to whip his surrogates into line.  He needs to stop running against Clinton and start running against McCain.

I think she should be let out better. She has done enourmous good for the party and has in fact put health-care in center of the debate. She has forever changed the landscape for women in presidential politics.

It's Obama who hasn't got control over his.  Where do I begin?  Samantha Power, Joseph Andrew, his own wife, and of course the beloved Rev.  And then there are his nuthouse blogosphere groupies trying to project Obama's problem onto Clinton with their faux Mickey Kantor smear.

The only way Obama can get all his people into line is to jack up the preacher act.  He hasn't got a coalition, he's got a personality cult.

I'm sure Brazile and the others knew this from the beginning. And so the DNC's and Obama's vile backroom tactics are the deciders in this race. It really doesn't get any uglier than this. He's an illegitimate candidate.

But I have now resigned myself to President McCain.  

She can do so in a way that positions her well for 2012 in the process.  She can "bring" everybody together in some kind of striking farewell to the campaign.  She will have already gained some new respect around the country by her toughness and and refusal to go down without a fight.  She's also won a spot in my heart by actually giving my home state a chance to vote for once.  By hanging in there this long, she's actually done a great deed for Democrats in giving millions of people a chance to participate when they may never really have had that option before.

If Obama loses goes on to lose against McCain, he would not be the choice for Democrats again in 2012.  With that, Hillary would be the strongest candidate by far as people will look and realize that they knocked out the most electable and best candidate out there this time around.  She'll also be a stronger candidate in four years after having more time to work in the Senate with some plans that "unite" the country and will give the country a break from Bush/Clinton/Bush which has been a problem she's been dealing with all along as well.

As for Donna Brazile and all the others who see Obama as chance to re-make the party, all I can say is that if what my party is beginning to look like is their vision for the future, if this is what they think the Democratic party should be, I will have no choice but to dismiss them as they have dismissed me.  What saddens me is that I think that works to their peril, not mine, and I think it works to the country's peril.

As for coming together and uniting behind Obama, I feel as an abused spouse must feel when her husband beats her up, pleads for forgiveness, but manages to excuse himself by saying that he did it for her own good.  What Obama has done to this process, and to this party he has not done for my good - he has done it for his own, and that's why there is not going to be unity.  As much as I would like to turn on a dime and support Obama, I cannot - I don't believe in his message, I don't believe in his tactics, I have seen too much racism and chauvinism, too little accountability, heard too many GOP talking points.

Still, I hope she stays in the race. Having her in keeps Obama on his toes, if nothing else. If he's going to be the candidate it seems to me that he still needs some seasoning. (Plus, as others pointed out, it keeps her better positioned for 2012 if necessary, but I really can't think about at the moment that because the prospect of 4 years of McCain is too awful to contemplate.)

We will have to keep hanging in there whether she stays in the race or not.  We will survive.  

Nobody's going to speak for us in an Obama administration, that is for sure.  The prospect having to live through four years of amateurish irrational exuberance clothed in phony progressivism is truly depressing, but we will survive.

Coming off the NC loss, and the squeaker IN win, we're acting like the world is coming to an end.  When WVA votes next Tues, we'll be all happy again.  Then KY will make us even happier.  The perception of wins is what has driven this season from the get-go.  Obama had eleven straight wins, and after TX, PA and OH, Clinton was on top.  What happened?  Perception.  And, lookit, NC was a squeaker for Obama, too, considering past elections.  It does him no favors that he would be flat on his face without over 90% of the black vote.  And, I'd like to point out that it's a bit after noon now.  If the SDs thought this should be over, then it would be over.

Remember: she WON Indiana when she was expected to lose.  This news, in and of itself, would have made us happy two weeks ago.  She was completely expected to lose by double digits in IN and NC.   If anything, all the win/loss does is keep us in the holding pattern.

Now, it may be too late to bring the coalitions together.  Their differences have  been articulated and made to seem like it's either or, Donna did not help.  

It then comes down to Oregon and Puerto Rico (Montana and S Dakota are very few voters). If more people voted for her than Obama and she would have won on any other deployed voting method (electoral votes, Republican winner-takes-all, both of which she already leads comfortable) it is difficult to see how denying her won't be seen as unfair. This would then lead to pressure to count Florada and Michigan, to give BO a chance to make up the missing Michigan votes.

Another factor is based on exit polls, she's averaged around 62-37 with white voters (she did better with them in NC and IN, despite results).
If you extrapolate over the entire country, she would be winning handily if these demographics prevail. For the GE, the effect of the AA vote is less pronounced as they are a smaller percentage of the voters and his near monopoly of the AA vote won't serve him anywhere near as well.

This is just one of the factors that make BO a better primary candidate than a GE candidate. Others are:

1. He's got where he is with the MSM solidly behind him ( MSNBC, CNN, Wash Po,...). This won't hold with McCain in the picture.

2. He'll have the full weight of the republican attack machine against him. I think there's more to be made of the Ayers issue and even Rezko (eg emails showing he colluded with Rezko to buy his house at a discount could surface). Plus lots we don't know about coming out and being blown up, fairly or not.

3. The public will have tired of his change rhetoric my November

That's why he and his supporters have consistently smeared the Clintons as racists.

you can't piss off women and expect to win a Democratic primary campaign

It's not just the by district allocation.  The McGovern Commission, in the end, gave us our current system.  A system vulnerable to sticking us with candidates like Obama.

It is clear that the divisions in the Democratic party have hardened.  I think that is good for Hillary.  She'll win WV, KY and PR - he'll take the rest, and so we'll go to the convention essentially tied.  The fact that Hillary supporters are so fiercely loyal to her means that she has to be taken seriously by the party leadership.  She has real power, and surely the party recognizes that.  The DNC, as stupid as its leadership is, knows that Dems can't win the GE if the Hillary wing of the party (you know the ones that Brazile wants to deep-six) bolts.

There is a lot which can happen btwn now and the convention. Alot.  One controversy can still kill him politically.  And a tie with hardening support on either side will make it more likely that Fl and Mich will get involved - and that is good news for Hillary.  Besides, I have a suspicion that there is more baggage for Obama; he still has a rocky road ahead (Ok, pun intended).

Not to mention, Obama got nothing more than and EXPECTED win, and did not win the "tiebreaker" state.

If the Clinton camp had made a similar statement, the media would have HARPED on that as being the benchmark for winning the night.

I would say that giving up ground is a signal that she knows it's over, but she's been pretty consistent at letting him get a step on her, to use a basketball metaphor.

...I swear supporters see racism, sexism, reverse racism, reverse sexism EVERYWHERE.

no...only in places where Hillary nutcrackers are sold, people are buying all the lies and filth about Clinton that Obama has spread, and anyone not voting for Obama stands automatically presumed racist.