Hillary Clinton

Barack Obama won a resounding victory in the North Carolina primary, and Hillary Clinton barely edged him out in Indiana.

In a different, bygone era, Hillary Clinton's loss in North Carolina last night probably wouldn't have inspired the pundit class to pronounce her campaign finally and officially toast. After all, there's still no plausible way for Barack Obama to assemble the 2,025 delegates he needs to clinch the nomination without persuading at least a hundred or so of the famously uncommitted superdelegates to leap on board his bandwagon. And there's nothing in the Democratic Party's rules that promises the nomination to the candidate who's merely leading in the delegate count or the popular vote. If anything, it's the reverse: A system that requires the winner to marshal a supermajority of delegates rather than a mere majority, and that throws a slew of superdelegates into the mix, would seem to be designed to have close races decided at the convention, rather than by a whisker-thin majority in a voting system that, were it designed differently, might have Hillary in the lead instead.

Campaigning for her mother on college campuses, Chelsea Clinton has faced repeated questions from students about the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

Chelsea's answer has evolved since the question was first posed at Indiana's Butler University late in March. On that occasion, she replied with a terse: "I do not think that is any of your business." At N.C. State, her response was more elaborate. "I think that is something that is personal to my family; I'm sure there are things that are personal to your family that you don't think are anyone else's business, either," she told the questioner, but then added: "On a larger point, I don't think you should vote for or against my mother because of my father." At Purdue this week, she had a "let's talk about the issues" answer ready that was worthy of her Dad: "If that's what you want to vote on, that's what you should vote on. But I think there are other people (who are) going to vote on things like health care and economics."