NEW YORK (AP) — Television's news networks brought all of their punditry and electronic firepower to the Democratic presidential primary coverage on Tuesday, but left viewers yearning for the simplest of things.

Say, a reporter with a microphone who could walk into a bar in rural Kentucky and ask some voters what was on their minds.

The night of political water-treading — commentators who had already declared the Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton race over were declaring it again after the Kentucky and Oregon primaries — did little to repair the campaign's punditry disconnect.

"It's another one of those split-screen nights," MSNBC's Chris Matthews said shortly before the networks called Oregon for Obama.

Clinton's victory in Kentucky was massive, a "severe drubbing" in Fox News Channel anchor Brit Hume's estimation, and exit polls showed the clear problem Obama had in attracting the votes of working class, white Democrats.

"The overall message here has been no more race and yet he is losing," said Fox commentator Juan Williams. When they addressed the subject, TV talkers spent much of their time debating whether this could change for the general election.

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough and Harold Ford – both former congressmen – theorized that Obama had spent little time courting these voters, and offered suggestions on how to do it.

What was missing was any real attempt by the networks to find out directly from these voters what their misgivings were, and why they came to the polls to express those feelings despite being told that the nomination fight was essentially done. "Some have said the campaign is over, your votes don't matter," Clinton told a Kentucky rally, in a part of her speech Tuesday that drew one of the strongest responses from the audience.

"You know our political process is about more than candidates running or the pundits chattering."

Fox News cut away from her speech before its end to return to commentating.

Clinton had used the faces of Matthews and NBC News' Keith Olbermann and Tim Russert this past week in an Oregon ad chiding the media for obsessing about the political horse race. Commentators also have been second-guessed for essentially writing off John McCain last year and nearly burying Clinton after her January loss in Iowa.

Because of his prominence, Russert's declaration after the Indiana and North Carolina primaries that Obama was now the Democratic nominee was seen as a pivotal moment in the media closing the window on Clinton's candidacy.

He didn't back down on Tuesday. "The pool (of up-for-grabs delegates) now is minimal, and there's no way you can go into that pool and find enough votes to get you over the top," Russert said. "Everyone knows that."

CNN's Gloria Borger likened Clinton's chances to those of a meteor falling out of the sky.

Her colleague, Jeffrey Toobin, said he found it interesting that Clinton's poll numbers hadn't diminished despite so much media talk that the race had been decided.

"People want to vote," he said.