Happy Wednesday! It’s the episode of Flaming Politics you created! Japhy Grant answers reader questions about what “independent politics” means, whether his friends can stand him and how he fell into this whole politics thing in the first place.

If you think this sounds suspiciously like a canned episode designed to let Japhy go on vacation, you win a gold star for the week.

Last night started early and ended late. The last thing I remember is trying not to snicker as MSNBC’s Chris Matthews tried to say something profound about the Clintons. Fell asleep in my chair and it took the dog’s whining, she had to go out, to wake me up. North Carolina continued to be Obama land by 14 points percentage points. The Indiana race however, was closer than anyone in the Clinton camp wanted. Essentially Clinton’s mathematical chances at taking the nomination took a beating last night because she did no damage to Obama’s lead in the popular vote and pledged delegates.

For months I’ve been saying if the virtual tie remained, Obama had to be be the good soldier for the party and step aside for Clinton. Last night’s results have changed my mind. Clinton needs to end her campaign and start working to make sure Obama wins the November general election.

Hillary has reason to be blue after her poor showing in Indiana and North Carolina…

It wasn’t until the wee hours of Wednesday morning that CNN and the networks declared Hillary Clinton the winner in the hotly contested Indiana primary, but her margin of victory of less than 2% was contrasted with Barack Obama’s 14% margin of victory in North Carolina — or Clinton’s own solid 10% margin in the April 22 primary in Pennsylvania.

“Sen. Barack Obama scored a landslide victory in North Carolina’s Democratic presidential primary yesterday, moving him ever closer to locking up an insurmountable lead among pledged delegates, while Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton posted a razor-thin win in the hotly contested Indiana primary as she sought to keep her shaky candidacy for the nomination alive,” Dan Balz and Shailagh Murray wrote in the Washington Post. Like other commentators, Balz and Murray noted that the May 6 primaries came after Obama’s most difficult month, with wall-to-wall coverage of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright affair and the ‘bitter/cling’ controversy as well as the ascendancy of economic issues — generally thought to give Clinton an advantage over Obama — over Iraq and foreign policy issues.

“Despite narrowly winning Indiana, while losing North Carolina, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton did not fundamentally improve her chances of securing the Democratic presidential nomination,” Adam Nagourney wrote in the New York Times. “If anything, Mrs. Clinton’s hopes for overtaking Senator Barack Obama dwindled further on Tuesday night,” Nagourney added.

As I predicted yesterday, Obama will have come out of May 6 with an even bigger lead in pledged delegates. Read more…

According to the New York Times the reason Indiana has not been called yet is because of Lake County, a large Hoosier county near Obama’s town Chicago.

Some guy on NPR, a newspaper reporter, said it could be tomorrow morning until Indiana is called.

Florida and Michigan?! She’s is going for her last option.