Barack Obama was expected to win today’s primaries in Washington, DC, Maryland and Virginia, but he won them by even larger margins than expected. He now leads Clinton in the pledged delegate count, and may even be leading if you include Michigan and Florida.

I agree with DrinksGreenTea that it would be disastrous to have superdelegates decide our nominee at the convention. I also would hate to see our nominee determined by the decision over whether Michigan and Florida delegates are seated. I would like to see a clear winner emerge from the primaries.

That means either Hillary needs to win all of the March 4 primaries convincingly, and win Pennsylvania in April, or Obama needs to take at least one of the following: Texas, Ohio, or Pennsylvania.

If Obama wins a big state, there will be almost no way for Clinton to overtake him, and I don’t think superdelegates will go against the candidate who leads in pledged delegates.

Hillary is paying the price for having no plan for the contests after February 5. Clearly they were counting on putting Obama away on Super Tuesday.