Hillary Clinton’s Hissy Problem . . .

Kathy was a girl about my age who lived down the street from me when we were a few years short of our teens. She was an only child and was spoiled rotten. She also had the most and nicest toys in the neighborhood and I and other kids often ended up in her playroom.

Woe be it to the playmate who didn’t see or do things Kathy’s way because she would hold her breath, begin turning a bilious shade of green and shriek “These are my toys and you play by my rules!”

Kathy came to mind when I read of Hillary Clinton’s latest and greatest breath-holding exercise courtesy of Mark Penn, who has all but wrapped up the prize for the most inept management of a presidential campaign in modern American political history:

If Barack Obama doesn’t win the Texas, Ohio, Vermont and Rhode Island primaries big on Tuesday it means that he’s in trouble.

Clinton herself later clarified this flapdoodle by saying that if Obama loses any of those primaries then it shows that voters are having second thoughts about him.

This spin is, of course is from a campaign that has gotten clobbered in the last 11 primaries by substantial margins and as has happened in so many other states that seemed tailor-made for Clinton, has seen its lead in the polls in Texas and Ohio evaporate.

For what it’s worth, Obama has had Vermont in the bag from the jump but could conceivably lose in Rhode Island.

Got that? He loses Rhode Island and its 20 delegates and Kathy . . . er, Hillary is the one!

The reality outside of the Clinton playroom is, of course, very different as a sobering analysis by Marc Ambinder shows:

Clinton in theory could still take the nomination if she wins in Texas and Ohio by 65 percent, Florida and Michigan’s delegations are seated fully to her advantage and all other percentages hold.

Whew!