The Obama campaign is right to be dismissive of Hillary's Florida victory given that they honored the deal that they all struck to not play there, and it was a phony victory. And for Clinton to be celebrating it and promoting it as a big victory is a little silly.
However, having said that, if I were running the Obama campaign, I would be a little worried. The fact that Hillary still won easily after four days in a row of strong, positive publicity for Obama because of the combination of the SC win and the Kennedy endorsements is not such a good sign for Obama in terms of this nationwide primary. It's a sign of how big a hill they still have to overcome to try to make up what is clearly a natural advantage for the Clintons. Florida was like a control group in an experiment. No campaigning was done, all other things were equal. Part of the results were due to the fact that senior citizens, Clinton's strongest age cohort, are a much bigger share of the electorate than in most states. And, as Chris notes, Obama seems to be getting some bounce in national and CA polls. But Clinton winning big in SC after four days of positive publicity for Obama shows how far he still has to go.
Obama is running a far more effective campaign than they were a few days back. They got knocked off their stride by Clinton tactics, and Obama was looking defensive. But he is now running a very strong campaign. The question is, can that strong campaign, going toe-to-toe with another strong campaign, overcome the natural Clinton lead, and win? And Edwards not being around to split the white vote in the South and Midwest isn't going to help.
Final note: I was sorry to see Edwards drop out today. His strong and impassioned progressive populist message was my favorite of any of the candidates, and I'm sorry he wasn't able to get more traction. I think the debate will miss having him in it, and I'm sorry the media never gave him the oxygen he deserved.
