Why Clinton won't debate before the NY primary

The last public poll conducted two weeks ago showed her with a very comfortable 71-23% spread.  (You may recall that her win here in Texas at the beginning of this month was by a 66-33 margin.)  So what does she have to gain by debating?  Nothing, and she stands to lose some if she does.

The ever-cautious and calculating leader much prefers to sit on her lead, run out the clock.

FiveThirtyEight.com projects an almost even split of the NY delegation, which strikes me as ass-covering on their part after their earlier embarrassments.  Fresh polling, somewhere in the pipeline, will likely show the lead shrinking; that's what the polls have done throughout this cycle, tighten up as election day draws closer.  So in the three weeks between now and April 19 -- when New Yorkers vote -- her campaign has probably calculated that can withstand some Twitter flak and even the grievous attacks of her nasty handlers and their enabling, sycophantic third-rate media (Blue Nation Review, need I say more?) and still come away with both a convincing victory and the talking heads on teevee spinning as loudly as we have yet heard for Sanders to exit the contest.

California's primary in early June, where she holds just a 7-point lead, looks long in the distance.

I still see a Democratic convention where Bernie gets a prime time speech in one of the first couple of nights, concedes gracefully, and politely herds his supporters onto the Clinton bandwagon.  There will be some larger-than-usual quantity of bitter-enders, but the safe bet is that like the PUMAs in 2008, most of the #NeverHillary-ites fall in line.

On a side note, has anybody been called a Sandbagger (scroll down to the comments) yet?

Just as boring as being alive.  Let's hope for a minor miracle, like a little bird alighting from the closed-auditorium sky, or another polling error, or the *ahem* usual something-unforeseen.  Clever and seriously snarky hashtags aren't going to be enough.

Otherwise the hearse bus is waiting.

Update (3/30): Nate Silver applies the numerical coup d'grace.