A round-up of this morning's must-read stories.

DEMOCRATS' NIGHTMARE: BACK TO SMOKE-FILLED ROOMS
(June Kronholz, Wall Street Journal)
If neither Illinois Sen. Barack Obama nor New York Sen. Hillary Clinton manages to pull decisively ahead in the next few weeks, the nomination could depend on the convention votes of 796 party leaders, or superdelegates, who are free to ignore the preferences of Democratic voters.

IN VOTE, OBAMA FELL SHORT OF FERVOR
(Adam Nagourney, New York Times)
One of the most intriguing finding in the surveys of voters leaving the polls across the nation on Tuesday was when they arrived at their final decision. Throughout a week when Mr. Obama was campaigning with members of the Kennedy family, when there was a sense that he was creating a movement that cut across racial and generational lines, there was a steady movement of Democrats toward Mr. Obama, the survey suggested. But those who reported making their decision on the last day bucked the trend, tending to vote for Mrs. Clinton, of New York. 

WHAT'S HIDDEN IN THE LATEST NUMBERS
(John Heilemann, New York)
That closeness means, by all accounts, a race that now promises — or threatens, if you like — to play out until the Pennsylvania primary on April 22, if not all the way until the Democratic convention this September. There are countless ways of analyzing how this battle might unfold, but as long as we’re already in green-eyeshade territory, let me offer a few numbers that could well turn out to be particularly important in the days, weeks, and months ahead.

RAZOR-THIN MARGINS IN MISSOURI REFLECT NATIONWIDE SPLIT
(Monica Davey, New York Times)
In all but one presidential general election in the past century, Missourians have chosen the candidate who won the presidency. But the state’s value as a compass of the nation’s political mood extends beyond general elections because its population’s makeup (rich and poor, urban and rural, agricultural and industrial) tends to look like a microcosm of the country. That compass on Wednesday seemed to be indicating, quite powerfully, that Americans remain starkly divided about who the nominees for president, both Democratic and Republican, should be. 

VA. IS NEXT BATTLEGROUND IN DEMOCRATS LONG FIGHT
(Bill Turque and Anne E. Kornblut, Washington Post)
Strategists in both campaigns had once regarded Obama (Ill.) as well-positioned to sweep Virginia, Maryland and the District in next week's first-ever regional primary. All three jurisdictions are rich in the African American, upper-income and independent voters who have sustained his campaign. But advisers to Clinton (N.Y.) are now mapping out a strategy that does not exclude Maryland and the District but focuses heavily on fast-growing outer suburbs such as Prince William and Loudoun counties in Northern Virginia and the state's economically struggling rural southwest, where unemployment is high among white working-class voters.

MCCAIN'S BREAKS WITH GOP LEAVE SCARS BUT COULD INCREASE HIS ELECTABILITY
(Jackie Calmes and Alex Frangos, Wall Street Journal)
Rarely has a party's pick made so many enemies along the way, from church pews to corporate boardrooms. Many Christian conservatives mistrust him, while his battles with major business interests -- energy, tobacco, cable and more -- are Senate legend.Yet the Arizona senator's biggest breaks with his party, from campaign finance to illegal immigration, also contribute to making him Republicans' most electable candidate: He's more appealing to the independent voters who are crucial for victory, and to the nation's fastest-growing demographic group, Latinos. For enough Republicans, it seems, that's reason enough to hold their noses.

GAMBLE PAID OFF FOR HUCKABEE ON TUESDAY
(Perry Bacon, Jr., Washington Post)
Already slipping from the spotlight and with little money to spend, the Huckabee campaign was in danger of further marginalizing itself by skipping the marquee matchup in Florida, where former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani had joined the race. But campaign aides did not think the campaign had the money or support to place in the top two, and they feared that a distant finish would cripple Huckabee's chances. Better, they reasoned, to turn their efforts to half a dozen Southern and Midwestern states that voted Tuesday, hoping a strong showing would propel the campaign back into the thick of a splintered race. The maneuver worked.

LOSSES ASIDE, ROMNEY PUTS CONVENTION ON CALENDAR
(Michael Luo, New York Times)
Mitt Romney is committed to staying in the Republican presidential race despite his losses on Tuesday, and has an eye on the long-shot possibility of a brokered convention fight, his advisers said Wednesday.  A brokered convention, in which no candidate secures the 1,191 delegates required to win the nomination on the first ballot, may be Mr. Romney’s only remaining path to the nomination. Calculations by his own advisers made clear even before the final tallies from Tuesday’s contests that Mr. Romney faces a steep climb to win enough delegates in the primary process.