Barack Obama’s expected move tonight in Iowa to a more fully general-election mode shows Hillary Clinton’s predicted win in Kentucky to be much ado about nothing.

“Just as Kentucky joined the losing side after the Civil War, it is about to join Hillary Clinton’s bandwagon on the day its wheels fall off,” writes Louisville Courier-Journal columnist Al Cross. Cross helps publish the Rural Blog as well.

Cross, who is also director of Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky, said Obama’s campaign in Kentucky stressed his Christian faith, perhaps more so than any presidential candidate ever, to combat the rumor that he is a Muslim.

“But his lack of personal campaigning should leave Clinton with a victory margin of around 30 percentage points,” Cross told Iowa Independent in an e-mail. “But turnout will be modest (Democratic voter registration rose only 0.8 percent since the last election), denying Clinton the 200,000-vote margin she first hoped for. Now her camp hopes for 160,000, but I doubt she will make even that.”

Here is Cross in the Courier-Journal:

Whatever the outcome in Kentucky, our primary day will probably be the effective end of the Democratic contest. Oregon, which concludes its mail-only balloting Tuesday, is likely to give Obama enough delegates to give him a majority of the total pledged on the first ballot at the convention, even when the disputed Florida and Michigan delegations are included and the resolution of the disputes gives Clinton a “best-case scenario” number of delegates, says NBC News political director Chuck Todd. (His math gives Obama all the delegates of John Edwards, who endorsed Obama last week.) So, just as Kentucky joined the losing side after the Civil War, it is about to join Hillary Clinton’s bandwagon on the day its wheels fall off.