Blue Crab Boulevard

Wow, talk about a bleak picture. Just read how the New York Times is describing Hillary Clinton's campaign train wreck.

SAN ANTONIO — The Texas and Ohio presidential primaries, on March 4, have become must-win contests for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, her advisers say. So why is she just opening campaign field offices across those states?

 The primary in Pennsylvania, on April 22, is also a crucial battleground. So why is her campaign telling its most prominent supporter there, Gov. Edward G. Rendell, that there is not enough money now for his proposed piece of direct mail to voters?

And the Maine caucuses on Sunday were the one recent contest that Mrs. Clinton had hoped to win. So why did the campaign of her rival, Senator Barack Obama, have better political and Internet operations to energize its supporters there? (Mr. Obama won Maine.)

The answers go to the heart of Mrs. Clinton’s current political challenge. She and her team showered so much money, attention and other resources on Iowa, New Hampshire and some of the 22-state nominating contests on Feb. 5 that they have been caught flat-footed — or worse — in the critical contests that followed, her political advisers said.

She also made a strategic decision to skip several small states holding caucuses, states where Mr. Obama scored big victories, accumulating delegates and, possibly, momentum.

Her heavy spending and relatively modest fund-raising in January compounded the problems, leaving the campaign ill-equipped to plan after Feb. 5, advisers and donors say.

“It sure didn’t look like they had a game plan after Super Tuesday,” Mr. Rendell said in an interview on Wednesday. “What I would have done, knowing the line-up, I would’ve picked one or two states to make an all-out effort, whether Maine or Washington State or you name it, to really try to stop the Obama momentum.”

The Times reports that donations have recently increased, but it sure looks like desperation. Clinton is begging for volunteers to come help her. But the campaign isn't offering to help pay for the volunteer's expenses, either. This is a portrait of a rapidly sinking campaign. The Titanic Inevitableness hit an iceberg named Obama somewhere along the way and it shows. But I also do not believe Hillary Clinton will abandon ship and will continue to fight - in an increasingly ugly manner - all the way through to the convention. It's possible that a mass defection by superdelegates could force her out, but I can't see that happening just yet. 

Also keep in mind that John McCain's campaign was widely predicted to be dead not so very long ago. So things could change. But this certainly looks very bad and Clinton does not have the one thing McCain had to make a turnaround happen: time.