The question on the lips of every pundit on NH Primary Day was: if Hillary loses, will she quit?
Some speculated that a resounding Obama win would be the start of an Obama steamroller to the convention, and suggested that it was in the interest of the "Clinton Brand" to save face and quit the race.
The Clintons denied the speculation heading into the vote, expressed confidence in their team, and waited and watched as they pulled out a stunning but narrow come-from-behind victory. Then, the punditry switched - did this reverse the Obama momentum from Iowa? Obama supporters fretted and worried (and volunteered and gave).
The loss in New Hampshire may have been the best thing for the Obama campaign. It may have been a "wake up call" as they are saying now. I think of it as an "innoculation" against the virus of hubris and inevitability.
Unless Obama pulled off a massive win in Hew Hampshire, followed up by massive wins in South Carolina and Nevada, I don't think there is any scenario where Clinton would have quit the race before Super Tuesday.
Instead, you would have had the sickening bleat from Chris Matthews and the rest of the MSM punditocracy about the death of Clinton and her vanity candidacy. Think NH but 100 times worse.
The Clinton strategy would have been to hunker down, build new firewalls in the delegate-rich, Super Tuesday strongholds, and turn Super Tuesday into a referendum on Obama. They would have fomented the backlash against Obama that we saw in New Hampshire.
Instead of having a narrow loss in a 23-delegate state, Obama could have faced a national cratering of support on Super Tuesday.
Now, I know this "up is down, losing is winning" logic is kind of tiresome. I think this "inoculation" can only happen once to Obama. He needs to win or come a very tight second in South Carolina. That said, I think things are still up in the air and that Obama, counterintuitively, may have benefitted from the reduced expectations on his campaign that Hillary's last-minute NH win has injected into the race.
And those reduced expectations are a GOOD THING.