The conventional wisdom these days is that the media are in the tank for Obama, and it’s mostly correct. But one of the unanticipated effects of the uncritical coverage of Obama and the enthusiasm he provokes is that it has lowered the bar for Hillary. The expectation that she was going to be blown out of the water on Super Tuesday — ballasted by rotten exit polls that suggested she might lose in New Jersey and Massachusetts, two states she carried with comfortable margins — helped shape the coverage that night as an unexpected triumph for her.

Now it’s happening again. It is said, based on the results so far, that she is going to have a tough month because the contests in February are primarily caucuses or in Southern states, and in both these contexts, Obama has had commanding success. In some sense, then, all Mrs. Clinton need do is not be humiliated to eke out a moral victory of a kind in the minds of people who follow all of this far too closely. The thing is that people who follow all of this far too closely help set the tone for everyone else. Next Tuesday night will offer some clues to this, especially in light of the primary in Virginia. If she keeps it close, you can expect Chris Matthews to talk about her indomitable toughness and grace under pressure….