Well, I’m back. And I see Senator Obama now has a small majority of superdelegates. Senator Clinton is persisting in trying to win battles even as she’s already lost the war.

Word is she will win West Virginia handily. Michael Tomasky writes in a muted, roundabout way that his home state has been taken over by troglodytes and will go for McCain in November, even against Clinton. Meanwhile, Obama is charging into general election mode.

The pundits continue to talk about an Obama-Clinton “dream” ticket. They seem to think this would cause the Obama and Clinton factions to reconcile. I don’t think so. I doubt the Clinton supporters would be happy with second place; I know the Obama supporters wouldn’t accept it, were the situation reversed. I understand that people close to the Clintons say she doesn’t want to be veep, anyway.

People speculate that Clinton is just staying in to get as many votes as she can because she wants to make a deal, about something, with someone. But if not the veep spot, what?

Michael Crowley writes that the Clintons may still believe they’ve got a shot at winning the nomination if they can just hang on.

Impeachment taught them that the specter of defeat could endear them to the public. It’s no coincidence that, before several major primaries, Bill Clinton emphasized that Hillary’s survival was on the line, or that Hillary’s campaign has advertised rather than ignored efforts by pundits and party leaders to force her from the race. She has styled herself as a populist largely by adopting the pose of a fighter–one battling an elite political-media establishment that cares little for ordinary people (as exemplified by her derision of experts who trashed her gas-tax holiday proposal as a gimmick). What working-class American can’t relate to feeling stepped on by the fancy-pants establishment? …

…The Clintons aren’t just reprising the political strategy that helped them survive impeachment; they’re also re-enacting certain critiques of their opponents. They believe that Barack Obama, like the ’90s-era House Republicans, has abused the system. They fume that he ran up his delegate lead in low- population red-state caucuses like Nebraska, Idaho, and Kansas with the help of activists who don’t represent average Democratic voters. After losing Iowa, Hillary complained that its caucuses weren’t accessible to night-shift workers and military personnel. At one February fund-raiser, Hillary said the pro-Obama group MoveOn.org had “flooded” caucus sites and to “intimidate people who actually show up to support me.” (It’s not clear whether Hillary recalls that MoveOn.org was founded a decade ago to defeat impeachment.) Obama wants to “disenfranchise” Michigan and Florida voters, the Clintonites say, by not seating those states’ contested delegates. Though the Clinton campaign doesn’t often invoke Ken Starr or Newt Gingrich these days, in at least one case Hillary’s people have played the impeachment card. After the Obama camp hammered Hillary for delaying the release of her tax returns, Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson exclaimed, “I for one do not believe that imitating Ken Starr is the way to win a Democratic primary election.”

Makes as much sense as anything else.