Day Forty-one, May 6

As of one minute ago (10:38pm MST), and with 95% of precincts reporting CNN.com is giving Senator Clinton a 2% lead over Barack Obama in Indiana. An hour ago, at 85% precincts reporting, Hillary was ahead by 4%, at 52 to 48. And, ten minutes to midnight in Indianapolis, it's still too close to call at this point. Both candidates knew it was going to be close, with even Obama conceding victory to his rival before voters even hit the polls, but the slim possibility that it could end in a dead-heat is great news. Similar to when Obama managed to narrow the polling gap to within six points in Pennsylvania in April, a primary race as close as this one is all the campaign needs to keep its edge in the delegate count. Of course, all of this work is diminished (barely) today as Hillary demands that the delegate count include the already voided districts in Michigan and Florida. That would push the required amount of delegates from 2,025 (which Barack is within earshot of after today's victory in North Carolina) up to 2,209, a mathematical impossibility for either candidate since votes from the aforementioned states will assuredly not be counted. Click here to read more on that hissyfit (and Hillary's repeated recognition of the 2,025 delegate total).

In the rapid counting pace of the Indiana primary that will make this blog post obsolete before tomorrow morning, I thought I'd post an even more primitive assessment of the election, this article from the Associated Press, "Obama wins N.C. primary, Clinton leads in Indiana". I can only hope that headline will take on a 'Dewey Deafeats Truman'-esque faleshood by the time all the votes are counted, but in the meantime, it's worth reading in order to shed some light on the vigor that both candidates have put into this competition since April 22. The report, written by David Espo and Liz Sidoti, offers a glimpse into what propelled voters toward both candidate, and also provides some refreshing news on what factors helped Obama close the voting gap. Most notably, while six out of ten voters said that the Reverend Wright debacle affected their vote for Hillary, more voters in the Obama camp said that it wasn't a factor in their decision (probably won't hear that on Good Morning America anytime soon, unfortunately). This little step is welcomed news to those of us who want to return the Obama campaign to the issues at hand, rather than spending more time pondering the company the Senator no longer chooses to keep for himself. Furthermore, although less surprisingly, is how the economy played a part in influencing voter decisions: "The economy was the top issue by far in both states, according to interviews with voters as they left their polling places," the authors state in the article. Depending on how it's depicted in the media, this could be good news for Obama's campaign, as the gas tax debate appears to be the next stop on the media's roulette wheel for the ongoing campaign season.