New York Senator Hillary Clinton’s chances to get the Democratic party nomination have been described by the news media and new media in see-saw terms for months, but there now seems to be a notable shift in the media’s conventional wisdom: the perception is that she now has little chance of winning and that the race is basically over.

The Clinton camp totally rejects that view. And rival and front runner Senator Barack Obama would be guilty of political negligence if he assumed that was the case (”Assume” makes an “ass” of “u” and “me”). But you do now a see a clear shift in many analyses, the most recent in a Reuters piece that is at times blunt:

Somebody forgot to tell Hillary Clinton the Democratic presidential race is over and Barack Obama won.

Obama has captured more state contests, more votes and more of the pledged convention delegates who will help decide which Democrat faces Republican Sen. John McCain in November’s presidential election.

But Clinton, a New York senator who has flirted with disaster before in the back-and-forth nominating battle with Obama, shrugs off growing predictions of doom and still sees at least a narrow path to victory.

“I hear it in the atmosphere,” Clinton said of the increasingly loud chatter about whether she should drop out and let Democrats focus on the general election campaign.

“But the most common thing that people say to me … is ‘Don’t give up, keep going. We’re with you.’ And I feel really good about that because that’s what I intend to do,” she told reporters on Tuesday.

Reuters notes that media commentators and Obama supporters are certainly not included in that group and points to the Clinton camp’s meticulous and skillful use of conference calls to media types to get out the message that team Hillary ain’t gonna be going anywhere yet.

But Clinton needs almost everything to go her way in the next few months.

She had a setback last week when her push for revotes in Michigan and Florida failed. Her victories there did not count because the contests were not sanctioned by the national party. She also faced an uproar this week over her misstatements about coming under sniper fire on her arrival in Bosnia in 1996.

Reuters then outlines Clinton’s hurdles with Superdelegates.

Clinton says she has won more big, diverse states crucial to Democratic hopes in November like Ohio, New Jersey and California, proving her worth in a general election battle.

The longer she continues, the more chance Obama might slip up and make a mistake that turns the tide of the campaign. Clinton has made it clear she will not consider bowing out of the race until all of the states have concluded their voting.

At that point, Democrats hope, a winner.

And, in fact, it is worth to note:

–There is nothing illegal about Clinton carrying on her campaign. Or immoral. Or in political terms unethical. As a challenger she has a right to take it right up to the very last second that she is allowed at the convention.

–If she wins big in Pennsylvania (as expected) it would enhance her image. But she will also need to win big in North Carolina and yet another poll shows Obama on a seemingly strong rebound there:

Hillary Clinton desperately needs to claim more white votes if she is to win a desperately needed primary by taking the Democratic presidential contest in North Carolina May 6.

But with five weeks to go, undecided whites likely to vote in that primary are, if anything, slowly moving to Obama’s column, or may be ready to.

Here are the results of our North Carolina poll from Wednesday night:

“If you are voting in the Democratic primary and the election were held today, who would you vote for?”

Barack Obama (49%)
Hillary Clinton (34%)
Undecided (17%)

The poll was conducted by InsiderAdvantage/Majority Opinion on March 26. It sampled 406 likely voters in the May 6 North Carolina Democratic presidential primary. The margin of error is plus or minus 5%. The data have been weighted for age, race, gender and party affiliation.

“Firewall state” has been the king of clichés during this campaign season, but that term has never applied more than North Carolina does for Clinton. If she loses badly here, regardless of any modest gains in the national delegate count, her candidacy may be done unless her primary victories in Florida and Michigan somehow end up being seated at the national nominating convention.

Most troubling for Clinton is that the trends in our polling of North Carolina show that a modest but significant portion of whites are drifting from Clinton back into the “undecided” column. Twenty percent of whites are undecided.“

Usually voters who change their minds do so gradually,” said Matt Towery, CEO of InsiderAdvantage. “A voter who’s going to switch from Clinton to Obama likely will first say they are undecided, and only later make a complete switch from her to him,” he said.

Our new poll also indicates that the controversy about Barack Obama’s fiery former church pastor so far isn’t alienating enough whites to significantly boost Clinton’s chances for a comeback in the Democratic race, at least in North Carolina.

BUT: this lady still has not sung. Clinton could still somehow pull off seating some or part of the contested delegations or somehow peel off enough Superdelegates. But then, the conventional wisdom says, the party could likely be split as many African-American voters and younger voters who flocked to the polls would feel cheated.

OR WOULD IT? A new Gallup poll gives details:

Democrats are at most risk of losing the support of independents, conservative Democrats, and, among Hillary Clinton supporters, less well-educated Democrats if those voters’ preferred candidate — Clinton or Barack Obama — does not win the party’s nomination. Black Democrats appear loyal to the party regardless of who wins the nomination.

…The finding that sizable percentages of Democrats say they would vote for Republican John McCain next November if the Democratic nominee is not their preferred candidate raises interesting questions about exactly whom the Democrats are most at risk of losing in the general election.

The poll gives breakdowns and then:

Across the board, the data show that Democratic support in the general election is more at risk among some subgroups of voters than among others. In particular, independent voters who lean Democratic are more likely than any other subgroup tested to say they would vote for McCain if their candidate does not gain the nomination. Additionally, conservative Democrats appear to be less attached to the party than are liberal Democrats, and more willing to say they would vote for McCain if their candidate is not the nominee.

…..These findings are not necessarily surprising, but underscore Democrats’ vulnerability with voters who are positioned somewhat more in the middle of the political or ideological spectrum. This may also reflect McCain’s strong appeal to independent voters, who may not need much nudging to shift their vote from a Democratic candidate to McCain.

So the Democrats may wish to choose: whose supporters does it wish to alienate and which rejected candidate’s supporters can do us less damage in the Presidential and Congressional elections?

Meanwhile, Clinton is leaving nothing to chance. She plans to campaign intensely in North Carolina. And she is lowering expectations, getting the word out that she expects that North Carolina will be an uphill battle.

One group that will play a MAJOR role in North Carolina: independent voters, since state has an open primary in which Democrats and independents (not GOPers) can vote.

Another tidbit that could be troubling to the Clintonistas: Bloomberg news service reports that Pennsylvania delegates are looking at the race and seem particularly concerned about a Hillary Clinton led ticket due to several reasons.

The prospect of a Hillary Clinton victory in Pennsylvania’s April 22 Democratic primary isn’t swaying some of the state’s superdelegates, who are hanging back while they calculate whether rival Barack Obama might prove a stronger draw at the top of the ticket in November.

While the New York senator is leading in polls, some undecided superdelegates — elected officials who get an automatic vote on the party presidential nomination regardless of the primary’s outcome — say they are concerned that her nomination would motivate greater numbers of Republicans to turn out in November to vote against her, and other Democrats too.

It isn’t over until it’s over — and Hillary Clinton has the perfect right to wait until it is all over until it’s over. Her supporters will also likely clamor for Obama to drop out if he loses both Pennsylvania and North Carolina, particularly by big margins.

But the bottom line for the Democrats is that Republicans are salivating as they watch Democrats stubbornly grab defeat and pull it from the jaws of victory. Some Republicans commentators write of their admiration for Clinton’s single-mindedness in pursuing her agenda and how it will help the GOP.

And somewhere, John McCain is smiling.

Cartoon by Riber Hansson, Svenska Dagbladet, Sweden