There’s a large sign in the window of the Gray’s Papaya at the corner of 8th Street and Sixth Avenue: YES SENATOR OBAMA, it says in block letters and then, for reasons only Gray’s copy editor could address it continues, in quotes: “We Are Ready to Believe Again.”

The primaries in NY are long gone, of course, and I don’t think the hot dog vendor was trying to reach folks in Rhode Island or Vermont. (For those of you outside of the area, Gray’s Papaya is one of those peculiarly NY establishments that boasts $1.25 hot dogs and papaya juice to help you digest what otherwise might be indigestible — a sort of metaphor for the city entire, where energy and culture ameliorate all the ugliness and stress.) The sign is more a show of faith, and it voices the kind of sentiment Hillary’s people love to hate.

“What does believing have to do with anything?” they wail. “Believe in what? Define your terms, damn it!” It is just such sentiments, reminiscent of Peter Pan’s exhortation to clap your hands if you believe in fairies, that makes them want to give all of us Obama people a three a.m. wake-up call.

Unfortunately, the person who does not clap when Tinkerbell is dead looks like a grouch. As Jon Stewart observed when he interviewed HRC last night, it must be hard to run against hope.

It must be hard to run on fear, too. I have a sense that the three a.m. phone call ad (which asked voters who they wanted answering the White House phone at three in the morning while your innocent babies sleep) has not played so well in the heartland, where she meant to strike fear. (Since you are probably reading this after the Super Tuesday Two primaries, you may have a better idea of how effective it was.) And the sad fact is that at a Hillary White House the only person up at that hour would be Bill, home from a night of tomcattin’.

Now the Obama bashing, or at least vetting, has begun in earnest as reporters dog-pile on issues such as the Canadian NAFTA memo in which one of Obama’s advisors is reported to have reassured some Canadian government officials that the Senator from Illinois doesn’t mean what he says about protectionism and free trade; he’s just trying to get votes. It’s hard to tell at this juncture if that story has legs, though most good political scandals have some character with a Dickensian, Drudge like name in the center, and this one has a fellow named Austan Goolsbee.

Sunday New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson suggested “that after Tuesday if there’s a clear indication of a solid lead in delegate count, by voters not superdelegates … we as a party … have got to see whether it makes sense to continue a very divisive primary between now and Pennsylvania and then the convention.” There is a growing sense among machers in the party (and Richardson is surely one, which is why he can get away with the beard) that more street fighting between our candidates will only embolden the GOP (as well as give them fresh ammo) for the general election. But the idea that Hillary would just walk away at this point seems far-fetched. You might even call it a fairy tale.