I've Lost Track of Who's Inevitable

Regardless of who winds up on top tonight—and it looks increasingly likely that it will somehow be Clinton after all—this is as surely Hillary Clinton's night as Iowa was Obama's. Somehow she pulled it out, and it's a race again. I'm pretty disappointed—my dreams of a progressive electoral realignment already crushed!—and though I think he still wins South Carolina and probably Nevada as well, giving him at least some bump in the run-up to Super Tuesday, it may not be enough to beat the Clinton Machine on Feb. 5. But keep hoping. Give him some money if you've got any. Fierce urgency of now. Hope. &c.

UPDATE: NBC calls it for Hillary. My god. Save us from the Clintons.

UPDATE 2: I haven't seen any hard polling evidence of this yet, but it seems to me the media projections of a double-digit Obama blowout are largely to blame here, costing us not only turnout but probably independents going over to John McCain as well. Obama's people should have been out in front of those polls a few days ago, throwing cold water all over them; now what should have been a close second-place finish looks more like a flameout because of high expectations.