Campaigning in the State of Denial?

By Anne E. Kornblut
MANASSAS, Va. -- After watching her rival win by dramatic margins in four contests on Saturday, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton made no mention of the defeats during her appearance at a Democratic Party dinner in Richmond on Saturday night.

And she ignored the results again here on Sunday. During a campaign appearance at a middle school, Clinton took questions, made a forceful case against the Republican front-runner -- and said not a word about her rival's successes.

"I look forward to making it clear that I have big differences with my friend Senator McCain," Clinton said, of Republican front-runner John McCain. Her aides said she might mention the contests later on in the day; the results of caucuses on Sunday in Maine will be known sometime after 7 p.m.

Typically, a losing candidate calls the winner in a gracious gesture of concession. But with so many different races on the line at so many points in the Democratic race, protocol seems to have somewhat fallen away. Clinton did not stay in South Carolina on the night of the primary there, instead flying on to Tennessee, which she won on Feb. 5. This time, her campaign has barely acknowledged that the races in Nebraska, Louisiana, Washington state and the U.S. Virgin Islands -- all of which went resoundingly for Sen. Barack Obama -- took place at all, except to note that Obama had long said he would triumph.

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