Reports of Hillary Clinton's exit from the campaign are running rampant over the blogosphere today. According to the sources, she's summoned her big-league donors and staff to New York for tomorrow evening's remarks after the final primaries -- in South Dakota and Montana -- conclude.

As has been on the horizon for a long time, we've finally reached the primary's endgame. Michigan and Florida are as settled as they're going to be. Obama may or may not be banking automatic delegates and most likely will declare victory tomorrow evening or in the coming days. So, here's the question: what happens next?

The big names in progressive blogging continue to spin out thoughts on whom Obama should pick as his running mate. Matt Stoller likes Wes Clark, while Kos wants Bill Richardson (or, perhaps, Kathleen Sebelius). Meanwhile, we all know of Chris Bowers' doctrine of reinforcement (a la Bill Clinton with Al Gore), leading to thoughts of either Sherrod Brown or someone like Brian Schweitzer. And then there's Hillary Clinton.

I'm less concerned about his choice these days. I would support Bowers' theory of reinforcement, but also see the merit of Richardson or Clark. I'm confident that he'll pick someone decent. Or, at least I really, really, really hope he does.

What concerns me is what happens next for Oregon and other heavily-contested states. Here at home, we already know that Obama will be sending in the cavalry, as their team considers Oregon to be one of the swing states. Although I'm not worried about Oregon going for McCain, any extra ground troops here will undoubtedly help the likes of Jeff Merkley as he runs hard against Gordon Smith. Also, Kurt Schrader will most certainly benefit from extra Democrat turnout, although Mike Erickson is looking quite weak (although wealthy). If you want to help out our nominee and stay in touch with his campaign, I'd go over to his Oregon page and keep a weather eye open for upcoming events and opportunities.

In the rest of the country, I'm encouraged to see that Obama's spreading out to throughly contest states like Colorado while also putting some energy into a place like North Carolina which, given some luck and lots of hard work, we can be competitive. And it doesn't hurt our Democratic Senate candidate, that's for sure. Once the party comes together after Hillary quits the race, I'm confident that we'll be able to work hard and paint McCain into a miserable corner while running the most national campaign a Democrat's run in ages. It won't be easy, but it's wholly doable. I mean, it's McCain. Once we start reminding everyone just how conservative and out of touch he is...

On the whole, I think Bowers says it best. It's been a helluva ride, indeed, and we're only going to be in for more excitement as the general election kicks off. Plus, a few of our local races should also be awesome.