Obama surges ahead

Hold off on those party invitations, Hillary; Barack Obama’s looking more and more like the real thing. The freshman Senator from Illinois won four states, a clean sweep, this past weekend and now holds a slight edge in the delegate count for the Democratic nomination. Obama swept to victory in Maine, Louisiana, Nebraska and Washington state this past weekend.

Even with uncommitted super-delegates accounted for, Obama leads the delegate race 1,134 to 1,131. It’s a slim lead, but may show states that have yet to chime in that Obama’s campaign is viable and Hillary’s is not inevitable. If he keeps on like this, Obama may banish Hillary Rodham from the race before the GOP has a chance to. And putting a young, vibrant, charismatic candidate with low negative like Barack Obama up against an old, unfriendly and ill-tempered candidate like John McCain, who now is the inevitable GOP nominee, could make for a perfect storm that allows the Dems to take back the White House in November.

The best the GOP can hope for now is that Hillary can tread water, leading to an ugly nomination brawl at the Dem convention this summer, which could disrupt party unity enough to let McCain slip in. But that seems unlikely, at this point.