Down to her last fingernail

After getting clocked in North Carolina and barely eking out a victory in Indiana, by any rational calculation, Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign is all but dead. Had she gotten the best-case scenario for which she was hoping—a double-digit win in Indiana and a loss within 5-7 points in NC—she could make a rational case for herself on the basis of the political situation; what the actual results indicate is that Sen. Obama has weathered the blows, at least with Democratic voters, and is still on his feet. Barring the unexpected, her hopes for the White House are over.The problem is, of course, in this craziest of all campaign seasons, how could we possibly have the cheek to bar the unexpected? When was the last time we had anything but the unexpected? Unless Sen. Obama completely self-destructs, he’s the nominee—but his self-destruction somehow seems completely possible, even if I can’t imagine anyone without Sen. Clinton’s ego actually betting on it. What’s more, I can even think of two completely possible ways by which that could happen.One, while we’ve heard all we need to hear about the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.’s beliefs, what we haven’t heard him talk about (at least in any detail) is his relationship with Sen. Obama. If someone starts asking him those questions, depending on his answers, that could torpedo Sen. Obama.Two, final arguments open Monday in the trial of Obama associate Antoin “Tony” Rezko. As Hugh Hewitt notes, “if Rezko is convicted and is facing a long stretch in jail, won’t he have to think long and hard about naming names in order to limit his years in federal prison?” Should that happen, things could get very, very messy for Illinois Democrats; the likeliest major pol to go down would seem to be not Sen. Obama but Gov. Rod Blagojevich, but the fact that Rezko did Sen. Obama large, expensive favors would tie him closely enough to the story to be fatal to his ambitions, should it end up breaking open on that scale.What are the odds of either of these things happening? Who knows? What were the odds of any of the things we’ve seen so far? But if Sen. Clinton stays in the race until she’s pushed out, she maximizes her chance of taking advantage if either one does. So, down to her last fingernail she may be, and there may be nothing but the strength of her blood-red polish keeping it from breaking off—but as long as it holds, she’s not going anywhere.