Clinton cannot close the gap in the remaining few primaries, all of which are in small states.

She’s still lending her campaign millions of dollars, an unmistakable sign of desperation.

Her only remaining hope for a “popular” victory rests on a shameless claim to delegates from Michigan, whose disqualified primary did not give Democrats the option of voting for Obama, and from Florida, where he did not campaign.

This contest is over. But Clinton could still play the spoiler if she fights on as she vowed to do Wednesday.

She’s had fair success among some working-class Democrats painting Obama as an out-of-touch elitist. A lot of those are cultural conservatives who’ve voted Republican in the past and could do so again this year.

The contest has also turned the party’s penchant for identity politics into an increasingly angry rift between those blacks and women who are singlemindedly bent on electing a president of their race or gender. That rift will get deeper and harder to close if the battle continues.

Clinton should gracefully pocket her gains, which are considerable. She achieved historic success as a woman presidential candidate. She’s not likely to make it to the White House, but she left no doubt that she could have under different circumstances. She has made it much easier for women in the future to be taken seriously as presidential contenders.

But we won’t mourn the departure of a candidate who, like her husband, has a far too complicated relationship with the truth.

A disturbing recent example was her response when asked to name a single economist who thought the gas tax holiday proposal – which she’d been using to bludgeon Obama – was a good idea.

“I’m not going to put my lot in with economists,” she said, describing their views as “elite opinion.”

Obama would never have dismissed all economists as elitists for trying to confuse Joe Lunchbucket with mere facts. When Clinton was flailing the issue in Indiana, his response was telling: He trusted voters to handle the truth.

Obama’s hard-won claim to the Democratic nomination is a truth Hillary Clinton must now accept. Until Tuesday, she looked heroically tenacious. After Tuesday, she began looking obsessive and reckless. It’s time for her hopeless campaign to end.