This isn't a surprise to me. I've been thinking that for a long time now- and even said it in one of our first podcasts in early November. Back then, such an idea was mocked. Believe me, it was mocked. Now, the campaign hasn't played out exactly like I, or anyone, thought it would, but, the idea that Hillary won't be the Democratic nominee is becoming real. The difference now is that the media, the pundits and the Democratic brain trust (such as it is), who all believed Hillary was the inevitable nominee, are now starting to grasp the new reality. She has a very, very tough road to the nomination. It's almost insurmountable.

The margin of tonight's loss in Wisconsin is large. And, as we were reminded constantly over the past week, Wisconsin was supposed to be more favorable to Clinton. But, when the people of Wisconsin voted, Hillary lost - big. Obama's pledged delegate lead continues to expand -- and the super-delegate total will also start to increase as the super-delegates move towards a "proven winner."

The Clinton campaign's recent negative ad campaign didn't work. The debate about debates was a dud, and the plagiarism charge went nowhere. But, Clinton is going to have to decide just how ugly she wants the rest of this race to be from here on out. On MSNBC tonight, the painfully pompous pundit Howard Fineman reported that top Clinton staffers think their negative campaigning worked -- get this -- because she didn't lose by 25 points. Let's review. On Pollster.com, right before today's vote, Obama was ahead of Clinton, 48.9% to 41.9%. She didn't move up a bit today. Obama did. He beat her by over 16 points (per the latest tally). If that's the best Hillary's campaign has, then Obama will definitely win the nomination.

For the past year, we were led to believe that Clinton had built an incomparable campaign team. That's proven not to be true. Top aide Mark Penn is a disaster (and according to Fineman, Penn is the one who wants to go really negative - good luck with that.) The Clinton team simply had no plan for any of the states after February 5th - they knew, and loudly told everyone who would listen, that they were going to win on Super Tuesday. Now that we're far beyond Super Tuesday, with Hillary falling more and more behind (the AP tonight called her "fading"), her campaign's bizarre response has been to dismiss any state won by Obama. Just this weekend, The Washington Post reported that the Clinton campaign just figured out the rules in Texas (the primary/caucus is only two weeks away). And, Clinton didn't field a full slate of delegates for Pennsylvania. Those are supposed to be rookie mistakes.

Hillary Clinton deserves better than the campaign she's had. But, Clinton put this campaign together. She owns it.

Now, we're moving on to Texas and Ohio. The Clinton campaign made those two states their newest "firewalls." They've set the standard. If she doesn't win both convincingly, it's over. It's already starting to look like "over" began three hours ago."