No, Harold

No, no, no, and no.

Let me make this perfectly clear. Obama does not need to win Indiana. It would be great if he did, but he doesn't need to. At this point, all he needs to do is run out the clock. As long as he keeps it within a close margin, the state of the race won't change if he loses Indiana. And any gain Hillary would get out of Indiana will be obliterated by the ass-whippin' she's going to get in North Carolina, along with most of the gains from Pennsylvania. Hillary needs to win Indiana far more than he does.

It doesn't surprise me that Harold is touting this line though. For the last few weeks, the Clinton surrogates have told us that Obama "needs to win Pennsylvania." He didn't, but what happened?

Nothing. The state of the race has not changed from 24 hours ago--Obama is still the leader in pledged delegates and the popular vote, and mathematically it is still impossible for Hillary to win the nomination short of a superdelegate coup.

Another thought--can you imagine what would happen if Harold were in Obama's shoes? Can you imagine how Hillary would attack him? "Well, we all know that Harold Ford has no experience. He was only 26 when he was elected to Congress, what did he do before that? Not much. He doesn't have enough experience. Oh, and he's unelectable. Don't ask us why, but he is." And if the Jeremiah Wright brouhaha is any indicator, Harold would probably be asked to reject and denounce the vast majority of his family members.