The flop on 5 February didn't favor either Democratic player -- Clinton was still ahead with her AK to Obama's AQ.  Obama spiked another queen in the Potomac primaries, however -- not because he won all three of them by big margins and not because it gave him the lead in pledged delegates . . . he paired his queens because for the first time he made big inroads into Clinton's base, older white women, Latinos and non-black lower-income voters.

If he can keep doing that in the primaries to come, his queens will hold up.



Clinton will pair her kings and take the lead if she wins big in Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania, getting close enough to make a brokered convention acceptable to the party as a whole -- or at least not totally unacceptable.  Clinton would be likely to win a brokered convention.

However, if Obama leads significantly in vote totals, states won and pledged delegates after the primaries, I suspect that Clinton will take the card room manager aside and argue that AK high beats a pair.  If he rules in her favor, the card room will riot and the Democratic party will be finished for the foreseeable future -- which might not be a bad thing at all.

Obama represents the Democratic Party's last chance to reform itself from within and from the bottom up.  If he fails, a more radical solution will be required -- a new party altogether.