This was the rejoinder offered by our commenters to my “who cares about Florida and Michigan” post on Monday, you’ll recall. It’s not the delegates, stupid, it’s the moral claim to the nomination that a popular-vote lead would give her with Democrats still smarting over the Goracle’s loss to Bush in 2000. Well, here’s what Mississippi did:

She was pounding the table again today about either counting those two states or holding a re-vote (which may or may not happen). Granted, every little bit helps, but losing the popular vote narrowly leaves her with nothing except her claim that she can win the purple states that Obama can’t. As I said Monday, a re-vote in the two states is likely to produce a narrower margin than the first vote (if not an outright loss for her in Michigan). She’ll pick up steam next month from what looks to be a convincing win in Pennsylvania, and possibly regain the lead in the pop vote — and then lose some steam and the lead a week later in North Carolina, which has almost three-quarters as many delegates and where Obama already leads comfortably in most surveys, so much so that Hillary may be preparing to concede the state. (Which explains why he may skip Pennsylvania and devote most of his time to campaigning there and in Indiana.) She’s already lost all the delegates she gained by winning Ohio and Texas, which it turns out she didn’t really win. Remind me again, how exactly is she going to pull this off?

Update: Note that that RCP graphic awards Obama zero votes in Michigan because he wasn’t on the ballot. If there’s a re-vote, his total will tick upwards by several hundred thousand.