Over six months, Hillary Clinton has been unable to expand her support base -- she's been stuck in neutral. To their credit, her supporters have been resilient, steadfast, and loyal. Any candidate would be lucky to have supporters as dedicated as Hillary's. (Of course, there's exceptions to every rule.)

Barack Obama, meanwhile, has a base of support that just keeps growing and growing. The secret to his success has been his ability to put together a broad coalition that keeps on getting bigger.

The media has told a different narrative, one of him losing support from whites, but that narrative has been completely false -- purely a function of the regional peculiarities of the primary calendar.

To see this, one need look no further than Barack's huge win in Oregon -- which, by the way, has one of the lowest African-American populations in the country at about 1.7%, conclusively debunking Bill Clinton's South Carolina inference.

So why can't Hillary Clinton seal the deal?

Well, one of the biggest reasons is a skinny guy with a funny name who last night won the most important prize so far in the nomination contest: a majority of the delegates elected by the people.