I think Kevin is right to dwell on the fact that "[Obama] seemed to be coming on so strong that it seemed inevitable he'd win one or two of the big Hillary states — or at least make them into close races — but he didn't. In the end, Hillary won California, New York, New Jersey, and Massachussets by double digit margins. It really seemed to take a lot of wind out of the Obama surge." One interesting takeaway of last night's results is that it doesn't seem to be Obama's charisma that's really responsible for his huge, gamechanging wins in Iowa and South Carolina. It's his organizing. The basic pattern seems to be that when he can really focus on and organize a state, he can boost what would be a basic victory into an astonishing triumph. When he can't -- when he has to campaign in a more glancing, media-driven way -- he either squeaks by, wins normally, or loses altogether. But for all the talk of the guy's cosmic electability, his results are uneven, varying wildly even across demographically similar states, and all sorts of voters seem perfectly immune to his charms.
