Delaying...

The Clinton team did well in the March 4 elections. I think that point is hard to dispute. She had late momentum that pushed her to a big win in Ohio, and a smaller victory in the Texas primary. The punditry will certainly be smitten with this "comeback" story. However, we can't forget the cold, hard reality of the delegate math. According to the Obama campaign's estimates (which I have no reason to believe will be far from the actual totals), Clinton will receive a net gain of 4 delegates when all is said and done from yesterday's contests. The Obama campaign estimates it still has a lead of about 156 pledged delegates. And:

Per the campaign's math, there are 611 delegates left to win in the Democratic race, and Clinton needs to win 60% of them to erase Obama's lead.

So the Obama campaign estimates that Clinton would need to win approximately 367 of the next 611 delegates to overtake his lead. That simply will not happen. Of the few states remaining, only Pennsylvania appears favorable to her, and that state "only" has 151 delegates. It is the most of any state remaining, but she won't win all 151 and it still won't put her over the top.

Right now, Clinton has 3 possible (although not plausible) routes to the nomination:

1. She somehow convinces an ass-load of superdelegates to overturn the will of the voters. Despite any clout the Clintons still have, that's an impossibly hard sell to make. Superdelegates are politicians, and they don't want to be on the voters' bad side. Plus, as a party that remembers all to well Al Gore's Florida debacle, Democrats will become deeply disenchanted if they feel the voters' voices are not heard and an election is stolen. Nothing would do more to even the playing field with Republicans in the general election than to overturn the choice of the voters (the winner of pledged delegates). This leads right into the next possiblility...
2. Clinton somehow gets a majority of the DNC credentials committee to seat the Florida and Michigan delegations as-is. Once again, nothing would do more to demoralize the Democratic party than to have the nominee of the party decided in an unfair manner. Florida and Michigan broke the DNC's rules by moving their primary dates too far forward. As a result, nobody campaigned in either state. Barack Obama's name wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan! If the Florida and Michigan delegations are seated as-is, Clinton's victory will look like a coup.
3. Florida and Michigan decide to hold some sort of legitimate contest in June after Puerto Rico. This would be expensive, and would be difficult to implement with regards to having rules that all parties can agree upon. This seems to be Clinton's most likely of impossible scenarios. Even if Clinton, Obama, Florida, Michigan, and the DNC could agree on all the details of holding future contests in June, Obama would still likely hold a significant delegate advantage going into said contests. And while Clinton would likely win any future contest held in Florida or Michigan, it is doubtful she would be able to erase Obama's delegate lead. This would bring her back to option #1, which, as I pointed out, won't work, and if it did work, would be disastrous for the Democratic party.

So Clinton's victories yesterday were victories and were well-earned. But, in the long run, she will still eventually lose.