The following excerpts are from editorials that appeared Thursday in newspapers around the country commenting on primary elections in North Carolina and Indiana.

Chicago Tribune: The only filly in the crowded field crossed the finish line second, but the fans who’d bet on her still had one last gasp of hope. Perhaps some fortuitous technicality would disqualify the first-place finisher. But things got worse instead of better. We’re talking about Eight Belles, who was euthanized Saturday after almost winning the Kentucky Derby. But we’re thinking about Hillary Clinton … .

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: … Several metaphors suggest themselves for the New York senator’s refusal to concede the Democratic presidential nomination to Sen. Barack Obama, of Illinois. Is she Scipio Africanus, the Roman consul who salted the earth around Carthage so that nothing would grow? Is she Blanche DuBois in “A Streetcar Named Desire,” hoping against hope to recapture her faded glory?

Or is she just the party guest who won’t take a hint? …

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: … By staying the course, Clinton can ensure that the ultimate Democratic nominee is bloodied and the party divided, whether Obama gets the nomination or she somehow accomplishes the impossible … .

Philadelphia Inquirer: … Some Democrats fret that this prolonged primary has hurt their party’s chances of winning the White House in November. If anything, this tough campaign has seasoned Obama.

He rose to the challenge of the controversy over his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, and has maintained his lead over a formidable opponent. He resisted the temptation to pander to voters with the promise of a “gas-tax holiday,” and it didn’t hurt him … .

Seattle Times: … Clinton is not campaigning to be the Energizer Bunny, which, against all odds, keeps mechanically bobbing forward and backward because, darn it, the batteries still work. She has talked in recent days about being a fighter. Fighters may never give in, but sophisticated leaders do.

Dallas Morning News: … Even if Clinton managed eye-popping and highly unlikely 30-point wins in all of the remaining primaries, she would still trail in the delegate count. And as Obama’s campaign explained in a letter to superdelegates, Clinton would need 68 percent of the remaining delegates and undeclared superdelegates to secure the nomination.

Clinton’s campaign has responded to these numerical truths with some questionable new math. The last-ditch effort to reset the number of delegates needed by bringing Florida and Michigan back into the mix is an unabashed attempt to move the goal posts now that Obama has the end zone in sight … .

Washington Post: … Obama has been promising, most famously since his 2004 Democratic convention speech, to rise above traditional red state, blue state divisions, but his political program and his legislative record are almost entirely blue. Now he’s entering the period when politicians generally move toward the center, no longer needing to appease quite so fervently the special interests of their base. We would hope that in Obama’s case this does not mean simply a cynical repositioning but rather an honest exploration of how he intends “to overcome the politics of division and distraction.” …