According to this nifty chart courtesy of The Jed Report, the magic number for Barack Obama clinching the pledged delegate race is 1627, and he’s now only 209 delegates short of that mark. According to Obama’s generally conservative count, he’s actually picked up two more delegates during certification, so he’s only 207 short.
With all of the posturing from the Clinton camp about making the case that super-delegates should choose her anyway based on electibility, there is no evidence to suggest that she would fare better against John McCain than Obama would.
Wednesday’s debate, steered by the ABC moderators into a rehashing of old tired Republican talking points that have been co-opted to serve Hillary Clinton need for a miracle, amounts to little more than the corporate media establishment farting into a strong headwind of change!
So here’s where May 20, 2008 comes in! Early in the race, the Obama campaign released a spreadsheet with their state by state projections. None of the hand wringing by Obama opponents in recent weeks, as one “campaign ending (non) story" after another resulted in a consistent plateau in Obama’s poll numbers and a steady decline in Hillary’s, suggests reason to expect the early projections from the Obama campaign to be far from accurate.
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Based on these projections, Obama would get another 177 pledged delegates by May 6 in Pennsylvania, Guam, Indiana and North Carolina, leaving him only 30 delegates shy of the magic number. Give him another 13 for W. Virginia a week later and he’s down to needing only 17 out of a possible 103 pledged delegates in Kentucky and Oregon on May 20.
Even if he comes up 7 or 8 delegates short of his projections in the earlier states, he still would only need about half of his projected totals on May 20 to clinch the pledged delegate race on that day!
And at that point: It. Is. Over!
I recently spoke to a good friend who is pretty well connected to a number of influential members of the California legislature. He told me that the general feeling among party insiders is that many uncommitted SDs are just waiting for political cover to bolt to Obama. And clinching the pledged delegate race is about as perfect a reason to move as a democratic politician could hope for!
Even beyond the undecided SDs, I know there are SDs currently included in the tally of Hillary endorsers - who will not overturn the pledged delegate leader! My own Congresswoman is among them, having written a letter to me and probably others, flatly stating as much.
Once the pledged delegate race is clinched, Hillary’s support will dry up faster than a slug in a sunny parking lot!
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