The colossal size of Barack Obama’s victory over Hillary Clinton in South Carolina — a 28-point margin — really does suggest the possibility that her candidacy is going to implode in the ten days between tonight and Super Tuesday on February 5. First, a 55-27 loss in a state she was projected to lose by 12 or 13 points is very significant. It indicates that polls aren’t properly measuring the intensity of Obama’s support. Exit polls say he won 52 percent of those who decided in the last week. That’s not only a reflection of the hostility generated by the ugliness of the Clinton attacks against him. It’s also a reflection of a genuine and unmistakable degree of excitement he is generating on his own. That kind of excitement can’t be quenched by negative campaigning against him unless that negative campaigning is issue-driven, and the stuff the Clintons have been throwing at Obama has nothing to do with issues.

And it’s important to ignore all the blather about how Obama won because he dominated the black vote. We know from Iowa and New Hampshire that he can win white votes, particularly among more affluent and younger whites.

It would be foolish to assume Mrs. Clinton can’t win. But she is going to have to change her ways to win, to run a different campaign, to find a way to establish differences between her and Obama on issues that redound to her benefit. The problem for her, and it is a very big problem, is that Obama doesn’t have to change a thing to win. Not a thing.