Obama the nominee, says MSNBCFollow

Michael Cox, a professor of international relations at the London School of Economics, said Obama's win "has sent out a lot of positive signals around the world."

"He has a very appealing persona — elegant, fluent, strings lots of sentences together into paragraphs," Cox said. "But in terms of (his) actual policies towards the Middle East, Iraq, Iran, China, Europe — actually, we don't know."

Reading about world reactions to the news I came across this gem

Didn't you guys have a poll at the beginning of this saying what you thought the outcome would be? I bet he's referring to that.

I'm not worried at all. Just amused. I knew over a year ago that Clinton would win the Dem nomination. All of this hoopla about Obama is fun and all, and I suppose it makes the people think they've got a voice in the decision or something, but she's been so clearly the heir-apparent that barring her doing something incredibly stupid and pissing off the powers that be, she'll win.

She's been playing for the long term win from day one. Obama's been playing to make a good showing in the first couple rounds hoping that would spring him within reach. The only thing that happened here is that the Clinton camp didn't like the loudness of the press after Obama's win in Iowa so they turned on the ol election machinery (in the form of briefcases stuffed with cash) and made sure to stomp him down a bit here so that he wouldn't get too uppity.

The 2nd/3rd tier candidates always do well in Iowa and New Hampshire. Because they know that their only chance is to win there and hope that brings in attention and funds to allow them to continue. The leader doesn't have to do that. Clinton could have just ignored NH if she'd wanted to, but presumably figured she'd play it safe. She could have won Iowa if she'd wanted to as well, but it serves her long term purposes better to spread the money around rather then blowing it on the early primary season. She's still got a lot of pockets to fill...