After spending the last two days and three posts explaining how this race is over, and why Hillary must withdraw, allow me to explain why it goes against her instincts:

1. She thinks she is a better, more-qualified, more electable candidate for president than her opponent. I happen to agree with her.

2. All of her political experience (including the most defining moment in her public life--Bill's impeachment), compels her to trudge on in the face of adversity and full-throated pundits who assert emphatically that she is finished. "Press on," her inner voice must be saying right now. "You can beat these S.O.B.s!"

3. She keeps thinking: "Obama is ripe for the taking. He is weak. People are going to wake up from this "fairy tale." She wants to be the one to pick up the pieces when the illusion comes crashing down.

Once again, for the most part, I happen to agree with her analysis--although this awakening may take years to transpire.

Having said all that, realistically, she cannot spend the next three months (between now and Denver) waiting for a pack of ravenous predators to catch up with her opponent somehow. She cannot win by circling above her prey like a canny vulture awaiting the impending demise of a frail wildebeest who has wandered too close to the lion's den. There is no political future in the vulture strategy. She needed to be the lion to win, but she missed her last chance to be a predator in North Carolina.

She must face this sooner or later.