The end of the Pennsylvania primary should have been pure relief, but it turned out to be an unrelieved drag for all concerned -- even McCain has to be wondering how the consensus nominee could muster no more than three-fourths of the GOP vote. The Democratic split wound little moved from where it started, the media coverage reduced to nonsense, merely amplified by millions of dollars of advertising. Even more disspiriting, the exit polls suggest that the race has been reduced to little more than identity groups: blacks with Obama, white women with Clinton, the older voters clinging to the Democratic past, the younger hoping for a break. Neither candidate is completely honest here. The game wouldn't permit that luxury, even if one felt inclined to indulge it -- not that either Obama or Clinton, much less McCain, would. As much as anything else, they're being judged mostly on the basis of how well they avoid any of the trip wires that mine the political fields.

This in turn is reflected in the pundits.

Paul Krugman: Self-Inflicted Confusion. Another whine about Obama, ending with the trump card about how the Democrats are increasingly likely to "snatch defeat from the jaws of victory this fall."

Mrs. Clinton has been able to stay in the race, against heavy odds, largely because her no-nonsense style, her obvious interest in the wonkish details of policy, resonate with many voters in a way that Mr. Obama's eloquence does not.

Yes, I know that there are lots of policy proposals on the Obama campaign's Web site. But addressing the real concerns of working Americans isn't the campaign's central theme.

I find this all very surreal. Both candidates are stuck in the awkward position of having to simultaneously appeal to poor voters and wealthy donors. The net effect is a mixed message, but both are inevitably bound to produce mixed results. That may be why who you believe depends so much on who you are. If Clinton is able to make more class-based appeals, it may just be because her hypocrisy is so much more firmly established. Obama, in turn, has to be vaguer and more nuanced -- because of who he is, he cannot afford rhetoric that could be flagged as radical. This opens both doors to Clinton: it's not often that one can engage in demagogic populism and at the same time tag your opponent as part of the radical fringe.

In 1992 Bill Clinton could have started a movement toward the left or to the right. It wasn't clear because he had elements of both. Even in 2000 it might still have worked out: his move to the right might be seen as setting the foundation toward a move back to the left, especially as the economic boom was starting to finally lift up the working class. However, his heir turned out to be Bush rather than Gore, and eight years later Clinton looks much more like the enabler of Bush. Maybe Hillary means to correct that -- more likely with a strong Democratic wind at her back, since about the only thing we can be sure of is that the Clintons will go where the wind blows.

Joan Walsh: Why Jeremiah Wright is so wrong. Walsh basically argues not only that Wright's oft-quoted critiques of "America" are broad and wrong-headed, but that in even talking to media like Bill Moyers he is actively working to undermine the Obama campaign: "Watching Wright and Moyers I also couldn't help thinking: Is Wright trying to ruin Obama?" I'm not in a position to, let alone inclined to, defend Wright chapter and verse, but I will say that Walsh is staking out a fastidious, self-righteous politically correct jingoism that I find very offensive. I for one have said things as rude and pointed about America as Wright has, and almost every political thinker I respect has done the same. Chopping us off deprives moderates like Walsh of support, of ideas, and of the spirit to stand up to the real sources of the problems that afflict us.