Hurdles

Ambinder reports: "Clinton advisors think their candidate is being held to an unreasonable standard. Why should she have to consistently demonstrate her capacity to win in major states? Why does the press persist in setting up new hurdles for her overcome every time she jumps over her old hurdle?"

That's even crazier than their new gas kick. Hillary Clinton has been subjected to a lot of unfair press coverage in her life. But I've never before in my life seen the press as willing to go easy on a candidate's claims to still be a viable contender. If anyone else had found herself in the situation Clinton found herself in in February -- losing a dozen primaries in a row! -- they'd have been proclaimed dead. And then on March 4, her one big chance to close the delegate gap with Obama, she didn't close the gap. The reason the press keeps setting up "new hurdles" is that she's already failed the hurdle of winning enough delegates to beat Barack Obama.

She's lucky these new hurdles keep popping up, because it's propping her candidacy up and, not coincidentally, probably good business for campaign reporters. But normally when your opponent racks up an insurmountable lead, you've lost the campaign. And that's the situation she's been in for months at this point.