On March 21 Politico.com reported: “Hillary Rodham Clinton has virtually no chance of winning.” Actually, they gave her no better than a 10 percent shot.

On Wednesday the Politico reporters told us: “She’s relaxed and she’s in her groove.” While conceding that she has a uphill climb to win in the delegate count, they informed us:

Recent days have shown that the ground has shifted in important ways for her. . . . if the mathematics of the race has not changed, aides believe the psychology has. Before, the Clintons knew they were fighting a story line that said she could never win unless superdelegates take the nomination away from a popular African-American who came in first. Now they hope that they have subtly shifted to a new story line: Superdelegates must think twice before bestowing the nomination on an increasingly controversial politician who has missed repeated opportunities to wrap up the contest with a decisive, big-state victory.

Suffice it to say that the storyline Clinton was fighting was written by reporters from Politico and other outlets who convinced themselves that Barack Obama could not lose. Was that based on wishful thinking? On an utter lack of appreciation for the paucity of real vetting that had taken place?

This is all reminiscent of the John McCain story: he was deader than dead. Until he wasn’t. The media, contrary to popular belief, don’t always like a horserace, and they have the ability to delude themselves into believing that unresolved races are really resolved. Once they have fixated on a narrative, it takes dynamite to blast them off it.

Perhaps “it can never,” “she’s never going to” and “there’s no way he can” phrases should be reserved for times when races really are decided and the math is literally, not figuratively, conclusive. For the media that may be boring, but safer. And a lot less embarrassing.