Josh Voorhees of Slate a few days ago contemplated the possibility of Bernie Sanders, with his rising poll numbers, winning both Iowa and New Hampshire and the effect that would have on the race for the Democratic nomination. I was going to post a rebuttal to his assertion that it would fundamentally alter the race. But Steve Benin on Rachel Maddow’s blog beat me to it.

Bottom line: Even with Iowa and New Hampshire in his pocket, it’s still an uphill battle for Bernie the rest of the way. Not a lot of recent polling, but what’s there suggests he’s still pretty far behind in South Carolina and Nevada, the next two primaries.  Super Tuesday is next after those two and out of the crop of primaries there, there are not many you would automatically identify as being sure wins for the senator.  As I’ve mentioned before, Obama did not surpass Hillary in the national polls until four weeks after Iowa and Bill Clinton did not win any of the first five primaries in 1992.

Of course, winning the first two won’t hurt him one bit and will confirm another long drawn out road to the nomination.