by Mark Silva
Calling an election is a risky business.
Calling a campaign, even a bigger gamble.
CBS News got about as far out as possible the other night in calling the contest between Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in Indiana. This bulletin moved soon after the polls closed: "CBS NEWS PROJECTS INDIANA FOR SEN. CLINTON - 8:09 EDT.''
It was another five hours before the rest of the networks, the Associated Press and yours truly were able to make such a call, with a narrowing vote in the hotly contested state that wasn't clear in its decision until well after midnight.
But, before it was all over, NBC News, or one of the best-known practitioners of the news trade there, was making another call: "We now know who the Democratic nominee is going to be,'' NBC's Tim Russert said when the voting in North Carolina and Indiana was finished. "Sometimes in campaigns, the candidate is the last to recognize the best timing... It's very much like being on life support.''
He was speaking, of course, of Hillary Clinton.
"Once they start removing the systems, you really have no choice,'' Russert said. "If, in fact, these reports of Sen. Clinton giving her campaign more money are true, then the Clintons have a big decision to make...Their ability to raise money, after the events of tonight, are going to be very difficult, as opposed to what happened after Pennsylvania, when the money roared in because people saw a realistic chance.
"That no longer exists,'' he said, with the finality of an unequivocal caller's call. "They know it. Obama knows it. And the voters who have been covering this race very intensely, following it very closely, now know it as well.''
So, with several primary elections yet to be held, and with Clinton still claiming that she can make the case to the party's superdelegates that she is the electable one - yet with the math of the delegates, pledged and super, and the popular vote as well, weighted in the favor of Barack Obama - someone already has called this campaign.
At the end of the night, the audacious call of CBS News proved right - and there is nothing quite like being right. At the end of the campaign, the seemingly less bold call of the man from NBC News may well prove right as well.
And there is nothing quite like it, in the news business, for the folks who will gladly tell you: You heard it here first.