As usual, I'm nervous about the primaries

I'm not in the political predictions business but since my friends and family always privately ask me for pregame analysis I figured I could go out on a limb and share my thoughts for a change. Here's an email I just sent in response to the question, "you excited for tonight?"

I might not even watch all that annoying coverage tonight. I don't think that Clinton even has to win huge, if she wins anything at all even by a tiny amount, her campaign will spin, spin, spin as though it represents a huge momentum changing victory and they'll feed that to the pundits and those parrots will repeat it all night.

The timeline works in her favor. She could win Vermont and Rhode Island and since those states are out here in the east, those polls will close first so the news will announce that she has two new victories under her belt. They'll start to throw out the idea that she has ended her losing streak and then the polls in Ohio will close. If she wins that the talking heads will be going crazy, focused less on the actual numbers than on the fact that Clinton finally won something. Whatever she might win tonight she won't win by large margins, she'll only win in the way she won New Hampshire which was only by two or three percentage points. But momentum is a weird thing. I think Obama will win Texas, but that won't be till much later in the night after everyone has gotten all reenergized about Hillary again and Obama's victory will be far less of a headline. Even if he wins Texas by a larger margin than she wins anything he won't be the talk of the night. The talking heads have already become so accustomed to his wins that they'll just want a fresh new headline for tonight, something to break their own streak of boring primary reporting because it has been the same headline each time for a month. If he takes Texas, which we know in reality will be a huge victory, the talking heads will actually treat that headline like a simple dog bites man, so what. But whatever she wins they'll treat like man bites dog and go nuts.

That's my expectation for tonight. Perhaps I'm over-bracing myself for disappointment, and I've certainly been wrong plenty of times before -- I made conservative guesses going into the Virginia and Wisconsin contests -- but even at those times Obama hadn't been the undisputed frontrunner. He owes a degree of his early successes to his underdog status which seems to sway rebellious voters. That factor could work in her favor this time but what do I know? Read the experts instead. This is still making me feel good amidst all this, it's a report from a Newsweek columnist who says even with a momentum upswing, Clinton can't mathematically retake Obama. Read these:

Hillary’s Math Problem

Slate's Delegate Calculator

And then watch Tom Brokaw's assessment which should provide a little more solace: