The endgame begins

Rumors are flying today that Hillary will end her campaign either tomorrow or the day after. Pressure is coming from her close and powerful supporters.

"It would be most beneficial if we resolved this nomination sooner rather than later," said U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, a high-profile superdelegate who backs Clinton.

. . .

"She'll do the right thing for America, and I don't think we're going to fight this at the convention," said Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell, a top Clinton supporter.

Another governor from a swing state chimes in as well:

Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, one of Hillary Clinton's most ardent supporters, said Sunday it's time for Hillary Clinton to acknowledge she has lost her bid for the Democratic nomination.

At some point it's going to start getting embarassing for these people. They all know lots of prominent Obama supporters. The peer pressure has to be pretty intense right now.

HuffPost reports that the Clinton campaign is starting to shut down.

Hillary Clinton has summoned top donors and backers to attend her New York speech tomorrow night in an unusual move that is being widely interpreted to mean she plans to suspend her campaign and endorse Barack Obama.

Of course, the fact that she's running out of money has to be a factor. What rationale could she possibly have to ask for money after Tuesday?

But wait! We have to endure yet more absurd arguments from Hillary herself!

“I’ve been closing very strongly since Feb. 20,” she said, referring to the day after Mr. Obama won Hawaii and Wisconsin. “I have won more votes and won more states than Senator Obama. All the independent analyses break in my direction. A lot of the key states that we have to win, I win those states.”

Kos rips this argument apart. One thing he doesn't mention is a sports analogy. This is like a basketball team arguing that it should win the game because it scored more points in the second half, even though it scored fewer total points than the other team overall. And her "popular vote" argument, apart from the fact that it's bogus, is like a football team arguing that it should win the game because it has more yardage, even if it scored fewer points.

Not only is her argument about winning the popular vote total specious at best, because you can spin the vote totals many different ways, but that is not the metric that matters. Obama won the most delegates. Period, end of story. If the metric had been the popular vote, both of their campaigns would have been very different.