Hillary Clinton just trounced Barack Obama in West Virginia. She’s giving a fired up speech from Charleston. And she’s not going anywhere.

I’m struck by the crowd in the background, all white except for an African American dude in a doo-rag. They’ve also got some kind of doofus in a windbreaker holding a bowling pin aloft.

I’ve admired Clinton’s fighting spirit for much of this campaign. On stylistic grounds, it’s almost bordering on self-parody.

As for Barack Obama, he’s certainly not finishing this race in strong fashion. I’m not sure if that will hurt his chances in November. But it can’t be good.

I appeared on NECN’s NewsNight tonight along with Rep. Frank Smizik of Brookline, Peter Torkildsen of the state GOP, and Casey Ross of The Boston Herald. The primary topic was Sal DiMasi’s fight to preserve his speakership. Watch it here.

Watch me cap off Mother’s Day, speaking to NECN’s Mark Sudol about the new phase in the 2008 presidential campaign.

Turnout was big for Israel’s 60th Anniversary celebration at the John F. Kennedy Library last night. Governor Patrick, along with Myra Kraft and Israel’s Consul General, Nadav Tamir, addressed the crowd. 

Patrick, whose fortunes figure to rise with the tough times of Speaker DiMasi and the resurgence of Barack Obama, gave a brief, good speech. He pointed out that Massachusetts governors have a record of supporting Israel since William Russell attached his name to the Jewish cause in 1891.

He also announced that he plans to lead a trade mission on behalf of the Commonwealth to Israel. While I’d expect the papers to get on him for this as time away from the state, I think there are some natural synergies between our state and Israel where biotech is emerging as a major industry.

I’ll have more on this historic milestone for Israel later in the week.

Watch me here on NECN NewsNight along with key Barack Obama fundraiser Alan Solomont. The host is, of course, Jim Braude.

Even if Hillary Clinton wins both North Carolina and Indiana today, which is highly unlikely, all relevant metrics still point to his nomination. This could be a shock for some people, including white blue collar voters, who will have seen Clinton surge over the last two months, while Obama has flagged.

The often unsaid reality of the 2008 campaign is that the deck is stacked against white, working class voters due to the Democratic Party’s distribution of delegates. In Pennsylvania, Clinton rode the support of these voters to a victory by a margin of 214,224 voters. Despite her win there, she gained only 10 more delegates than Obama.

Obama, by contrast, won by a sounder margin in the Idaho caucuses. He defeated Clinton: 16,880 to 3,665. Thanks to this 13,000 margin, Obama garnered 12 delegates. Although Clinton won Pennsylvania by a margin that is 16 times greater than the margin Obama won by in Idaho, she received two fewer delegates.

Obama won more delegates in Idaho because of the high percentage of his victory there. It’s all the more puzzling because the state is practically irrelevant to a Democratic win in November. In Pennsylvania, Obama’s losses were mitigated because his success came in urban areas, which carry more delegates than less populated and less Democratic areas.

A similar analysis of Ohio demonstrates analogous results. In Texas, where Mrs. Clinton won the popular vote in the primary by more than 100,000 votes out of almost 2 million, she ended up losing five delegates to Obama. Again, this was due to Democratic delegate apportionment and Obama’s success in a caucus there when less than 43,000 participated.

Just because Obama has the delegate advantage, doesn’t mean it’s fair. But this is politics.

I’d watch the fallout here as the Democratic Party attempts to come together as the Democratic National Convention approaches. 

I will be part of NECN’s Election Night coverage. My appearance will be during the 8:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. block.

I often take a moment to reflect upon the trajectories taken by local writers and political pundits. One political analyst who continues to elevate his game is Jon Keller of WBZ-TV. Keller began the process when he published “The Bluest State” last year. He followed up on that success with a thoughtful essay in The Wall Street Journal on Saturday. In it, he revisited the similarities between Governor Patrick and Barack Obama.

“Education may be the one area where Mr. Patrick could have done the most to demonstrate that he is indeed a new man of the left. Fifteen years ago, the state enacted strict testing requirements for both teachers and students and passed reforms that encourage the creation of charter schools. The result: Massachusetts consistently places among the top performers on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Sticking by these bipartisan reforms – or even expanding them to help minority children in poor areas – would seem to be an easy call.

But to the delight of education unions, Mr. Patrick instead appears to be laying the groundwork to dismantle these reforms. He appointed antitesting zealot Ruth Kaplan to the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, where she repaid his confidence recently by disparaging the college preparation emphasis of some charter schools. She said these schools set ’some kids up for failure . . . Their families don’t always know what’s best for their children.’

S. Paul Reville, chairman of the education board, has also drawn attention for his willingness to water down certification testing requirements for aspiring teachers. Under the guise of trying to overcome a teacher shortage, the administration wants to allow applicants who have failed the test three times to teach anyway. When pressed on the issue, Mr. Reville said publicly that the certification test ‘isn’t necessarily the best venue for everybody to demonstrate their competency.’ “

Hillary Clinton has really hit her stride with this Hillary as a fighter motif. That explains why she would appear with vocal critic Bill O’Reilly. 

The mystery of this campaign is that Clinton is peaking as Barack Obama is at his worst. By every measurable standard, Obama should be the nominee. Yet Clinton is lapping him at the end. She’s even been wearing a garish magenta-accented outfit, which along with the return of big hair is causing the Fabulous Dana to suspect is poll-driven to draw blue collar votes.

Much has been made of the anger that many of the voters Obama has brought into the system will express if the super delegates choose Clinton as the nominee (as Politico reports many have already decided). But could there be an equivalent — or even greater — sense of frustration from those who have witnessed Obama take a dive over the last several weeks. That’s what the recent Suffolk poll of Pennsylvania suggested.

This means that if and when Obama becomes the presumptive nominee any sense of peace among the Democrats will hinge on Clinton and her supporters. If Clinton chooses, it could be ugly.

One story I came across when I was down in Pennsylvania for the primary was the interest in Chris Matthews running for the Senate. It was not surprising that Matthews, a local hometown boy would move his show to Philadelphia in the days before the primary. But he appeared to use the program in a way that would be politically advantageous to him — if he did decide to run.

I write in The New York Sun: “Political figures that appeared on his national show were the mayor of Philadelphia, Michael Nutter, and an African-American congressman of Philadelphia, Chaka Fattah. In addition, Mr. Matthews interviewed on ‘Hardball’ the chairmen of the Democratic committees of Allegheny, Montgomery, and Lackawanna counties, James Burn Jr., Marcel Groen, and Harry McGrath, local figures vital to any statewide candidacy.”

I met up with Burn at Pamela’s P & G Diner in Millvale following Bill Clinton’s speech in that community just outside Pittsburgh. ” ‘It would be interesting … He’s got a great history. He knows how to do it,’ Burn told me. ‘I look forward to having a conversation with him about his candidacy.’ “