UPDATE: Wow, CNN's numbers are screwy on Texas. As of 8:45, Obama and Clinton combined have nearly 800,000 votes, with less than one percent reporting. Unless the illegal immigration and ballot fraud problems are a lot worse than I thought, those vote counts are way too high.

Blitzer pointed out - roughly 10 minutes ago - that it was because a lot of early voting took place prior to the Texas primary. Perhaps there are just a large number of us Texas expats (assuming absentee ballots count as early voting).

There can't be any doubt that were the situation reversed with Sen. Clinton holding a small lead that Sen. Obama had only a slight mathematical chance of erasing, the Clinton campaign would be pulling out all the stops to secure Obama's withdrawal from the race.

In this case, I'd be very surprised if Clinton withdrew as long as there was the smallest possibility that she might win the nomination. From her point of view, the Democratic Presidential nomination is something she is entitled to, something Bill Clinton owes her for all he put her through and the party owes her for all she put up with from him. This sense of entitlement can be a powerful motivator, as the Bushes have shown us over the years -- and American voters are sometimes more accepting of it than one would think.

Obama needs to campaign as the underdog to sustain his lead through the end of the primary season. He can assume nothing about the disqualified delegates from Florida and Michigan; the likelihood is that the Clinton campaign will make a major push to seat all of them once the primaries are over. He has been tentative in challenging Sen. Clinton's extravagant claims of vast experience, and that has to stop. He has talked from time to time about telling Americans uncomfortable truths, and in the face of Clinton's relentless pandering it might be time to consider actually doing it.

Obama and his people need to understand that he could still lose this race. There will be some discussion in the next couple of news cycles about delegate counts and how they favor Obama, but the way today's primary results will appear in the media will show Obama taking a big hit from a revived Clinton. He'll need to take the initiative back.

Look, the Democratic nomination does NOT go to "the candidate who has the most delegates." It goes to the candidate who amasses 2,025 delegates, if I've got the number correct. And even if Barack finishes the primary season slightly ahead of Hillary, he won't have that many. That's when the bargaining begins -- and if Hillary truly can argue that she's won major states, where Barack can't close the deal, then she has the better claim on the nomination.

Everything starting with the quote in this post is italicized, (rest of blog entries on the main page).