Already looking past Pennsylvania

While Obama spends a couple of days in the Virgin Islands recharging for the stretch run, you may have noticed that Clinton's schedule (and that of her surrogate-in-chief, Bill) has been heavy on North Carolina and Indiana. I was going to write about how Obama has already won the expectations game in Pennsylvania, and with Clinton expected to win handily there, it would offer nary a boost to her efforts. But New York Magazine's John Heilemann beat me to it.

Now, it’s certainly true that both campaigns are still expending considerable time and resources in Pennsylvania: Hillary hit Philly and Uniontown yesterday and was in Greensburg this morning, and her first TV ad in the state also hit the air today; and Obama plans to kick off a six-day bus tour of the state on Friday. And no doubt, the exit polls there will be scoured (and rightly so) for evidence regarding the effect of the Jeremiah Wright furor and Obama’s attempt to quell it with his big speech on race. Yet in the wake of Clinton’s triumphs in Texas and Ohio and the eruption of the Wright controversy, Clinton’s lead in polls in Pennsylvania has widened from single digits to as much as 26 points. Among operatives in both camps, the question is no longer whether Hillary will win the primary but how gaping her margin will be.

That Clinton’s people realize this has reduced the perceived value of that putative victory is evinced by a single fact: the decision to dispatch Ace Smith to North Carolina, which holds its primary on May 6. Smith is the San Francisco–based former opposition researcher who managed the campaigns of Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and California attorney general Jerry Brown — along with Clinton’s successful primary bids in the Golden State and Texas. What the Smith assignment means, says John Edwards’s former chief strategist, Joe Trippi, is that "they are going to try to go for broke and take Obama down in North Carolina."

Obama could short-circuit this process by losing Pennsylvania narrowly (or winning, of course), and he can gain momentum into North Carolina and Indiana by losing by "just" 10 points or so. It's a much better position to be in than in Texas and Ohio, where he had two weeks to transform large double digit deficits into victories in order to cleanly punt Clinton from the race.

But regardless, this may be were it all comes down -- two weeks after Pennsylvania on May 6. Both Indiana and North Carolina should favor Obama. If he can't close the race out there, then it gives Clinton an excuse to fight on, no matter what the math (and accordant reality) have to say.