Hillary Clinton’s failure of momentum in Indiana and North Carolina last week as good as assured Barack Obama of the Democratic party’s nomination. Regardless of what happens in West Virginia tomorrow (Mrs Clinton expects an easy win), the question is no longer whether she has a chance of deflecting her rival. It is whether the manner of her exit will support or undermine him – and then what kind of contest the battle between Mr Obama and John McCain, the Republican nominee, will be.

The nomination fight has left the Democratic party divided. Mr Obama hardly swept the board in last week’s primaries: he won comfortably in a state he expected to win and held Mrs Clinton to a close result in the other. In other words, he triumphed only in denying her the big results she needed.

He made no inroads into her base of support. He merely shored up his own – among black people, the young and the urban middle class – and (against the run of recent poll results) stopped the rot elsewhere. It was enough to win and to calm the nerves of party leaders who were starting to question Mr Obama’s electability.

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The hole the US Democratic party is digging for itself just keeps getting deeper. In the past few days, after the grisly reappearance of Jeremiah Wright – the former friend who came not to praise Barack Obama but to bury him – Hillary Clinton’s standing in the polls has improved again. In Tuesday’s primaries, she is hoping for a comfortable win in Indiana and a close result in North Carolina, a dramatic change from just a month ago.

Meanwhile, Mr Obama continues to attract support from the unelected “super-delegates” who will almost certainly settle this thing. To understand why this is happening – why the super-delegates are choosing Mr Obama even as the wavering rank-and-file is having doubts – one must heed their growing alarm at the emerging prospect.

Despite Mrs Clinton’s recovery, Mr Obama will almost certainly end up with a majority of elected delegates and, unless the wheels come off completely, a majority of the popular vote (on most of the ways the Democratic party has provided for arriving at that figure).

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I’m away for the next two weeks. Enjoy next Tuesday’s tie-breakers, and the tie-breaker in the following week. I’ll be back for all subsequent tie-breakers.

The New York Times reports that high gas prices are causing people to buy smaller cars.

Soaring gas prices have turned the steady migration by Americans to smaller cars into a stampede.

In what industry analysts are calling a first, about one in five vehicles sold in the United States was a compact or subcompact car during April, based on monthly sales data released Thursday. Almost a decade ago, when sport utility vehicles were at their peak of popularity, only one in every eight vehicles sold was a small car.

Colour me amazed. But it’s not too late to interrupt this alarming trend. Let’s try a gas-tax holiday. (One question about that proposal, by the way, I wish somebody would put to Hillary Clinton and John McCain: if it’s such a good idea, why do it just for the summer?)

At this, a twinge of homesickness. I never thought Boris would do it.