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Early in the night, on both CNN and Fox News (BBC’s coverage was patchy, best to switch to an American news broadcaster) were declaring that Clinton had to win by 10-12 percentage points to call it a big success, or a “sea change”. Reading once again too much into the exit polls, which were predicting a 4-point lead to Clinton, they dismissed her - before the votes had even been fully counted. How wrong were they! During Obama’s speech Clinton’s margin went up another two points to reach a full 10-point lead over him. It held steady until all the counties had reported in.

Talk of ruining the Democratic party and helping McCain’s campaign as it rolls onto November were overblown. We see today in the news that it is in fact the energising of the electorate and the several hundred-thousand new registered democratic voters that is highlighted today.

The truth of the matter is that Clinton is going to win this nomination be it at the party convention in Denver or before. If she can close the gap, the same way Obama did in Pennsylvania but in North Carolina and if she can hold on to Indiana then she will have the stronger case to being handed the nomination by the super-delegates.

In the run up to Pennsylvania’s primary he muddied his campaign, he harmed the brand that preaches of hope and change and a “new politics”. He was defused in the ABC debate by Clinton in a way that he had not been before. If only he could have spoken in the manner he did at his conciliation speech after the results were coming in this morning (GMT).

Clinton has wised up too. If she had continued her personal, emotional appeal to voters that we had a glimpse of in that cafe in New Hampshire then she would have done a lot better in the smaller states that were picked up by Obama, bottom line being a delegate count and popular vote more in line with a definitive winner. She has also emphasised her website and I’m sure the donations will come rolling in, she has the momentum now.

In a smart move by her, she did not lay in to Obama with her victory speech - I think she was in fact the nicest she’d been to him in a long while. I think we’ll find ultimately what happens is that Clinton will have the pole position on the democratic ticket and Obama will be her second. It is the only way.

Just from reading people’s various blogs on Planet Mozilla / Planet Fedora / Planet GNOME, it’s clear that the large majority of the people are Obama supporters - indeed Nat Friedman raised money for him. This fits in with the reported demographic that Obama is supposedly meant to pull in, the ‘young professionals’, or so I am lambasted by the results of latest polling etc. on BBC News 24 or in the Guardian / Independent.

I’m not actually that in on the nuances of policy and the differences that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have between them on the important issues of the day. I also know that it’s probably just as right for open source folks to sling mud in Senator Clinton’s face on many occasions, and quote arguably bias statistics or at least cherry picked - as it is for Bill Clinton to wade in and throw sand in his not-even-opponent’s-face. I just wasn’t expecting such a professional crowd of usually well meaning, good natured people to get so in to the political tussle and lose objectiveness. However, a lot of the bloggers on the various Planets I’ve mentioned are US based (To my knowledge) and it’s reasonable to want to put across your view on the internet. I just wish you’d not white wash the affair, and give a structured coherent argument.

Edit: I must admit that Nat Friedman’s comment has made me realise this article is too personal. I have lost my objectivity. I should have waited to write this, let the thoughts settle first. I apologise if I’ve upset anyone over this.

However, I am young and a Politics student, the road to the US elections of 2008 is very interesting to me and I myself think that Hillary Clinton is the best democratic candidate. As I’ve said in the article, this isn’t based upon detailed knowledge of policy. It should have been. That’s an interesting argument in itself - Do people vote with policy in mind, or is it something else? We’ll leave that one to another day.