Clinton's math is right
Currently the pledged-delegate counts (i.e. not the superdelegates) are around 1100 to 1000, with Obama in the lead. The number required to become the Democratic nominee is 2025.
Now I realize that the amount of noise and uncertainty in the delegate-information system is pretty high, which has accounted for the different numbers you can get from various sources. But unless I'm not just off but wildly off in my reasoning, it's impossible for either Clinton or Obama to win the nomination on pledged delegates alone at this point; they're going to need superdelegates to do it:
There are 19 states left to go in the Democratic primaries. According to
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/democratic_delegate_count.html
they account for 963 total delegates. That source doesn't state how many of those are pledged and how many are superdelegates, but it does say that 796 of all the delegates are superdelegates. Well, there are 4049 delegates total (which is why the winning threshold is 2025), so that means superdelegates are a little less than 20% of all delegates. If we assume that also holds true for the 19 states left to go, then of their 963 delegates, 193 are supers and 770 are pledged.
Even if every pledged delegate remaining went for Obama, or for Clinton, that still wouldn't put them at 2025. So I can't see how this race isn't going to come down to who the supers vote for, and since they're allowed to change their minds as much as they want between now and the convention in August there's no way to be sure what the outcome will be, unless one of the two candidates withdraws from the race... and I have my doubts that either would be willing to do that.
See you in August?
Now I realize that the amount of noise and uncertainty in the delegate-information system is pretty high, which has accounted for the different numbers you can get from various sources. But unless I'm not just off but wildly off in my reasoning, it's impossible for either Clinton or Obama to win the nomination on pledged delegates alone at this point; they're going to need superdelegates to do it:
There are 19 states left to go in the Democratic primaries. According to
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/democratic_delegate_count.html
they account for 963 total delegates. That source doesn't state how many of those are pledged and how many are superdelegates, but it does say that 796 of all the delegates are superdelegates. Well, there are 4049 delegates total (which is why the winning threshold is 2025), so that means superdelegates are a little less than 20% of all delegates. If we assume that also holds true for the 19 states left to go, then of their 963 delegates, 193 are supers and 770 are pledged.
Even if every pledged delegate remaining went for Obama, or for Clinton, that still wouldn't put them at 2025. So I can't see how this race isn't going to come down to who the supers vote for, and since they're allowed to change their minds as much as they want between now and the convention in August there's no way to be sure what the outcome will be, unless one of the two candidates withdraws from the race... and I have my doubts that either would be willing to do that.
See you in August?
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If one of the candidates pulls far enough ahead, there will be a lot of pressure on the other to withdraw. I expect that more superdelegates will declare as well. If one of the candidates gets a sufficient number of declared superdelegates, I expect that the other will conclude that the game is over. If the candidates are neck-and-neck, neither will withdraw of course, but the fact that neither candidate can get enough pledged delegate to clinch it does not by itself mean that this will go all the way to convention.
February 14, 2008 12:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
using numbers from barackobama.com
4049-796=3253 pledge total
3252-2168=1085 pledge left
obama needs 2025-1139 = 886
clinton needs 2025-1003 = 1022
so there are enough left for either to go over the top. but with the way they are won, obama needs 82% and clinton needs 94%. neither is possible.
February 14, 2008 8:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is not about arithmetic. It would be ingenuous to claim that the Hillary campaign's statements were a prognostication of the delegate count race rather than the blatant assertion that she will struggle to win this nomination in spite of popular will by means of the political machinery and of insiders.
February 14, 2008 9:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
There's no chance in the world Hillary gets this nomination, or that it wll "go to the convention in August." With the state-by-state polling v. McCain starting to mean something, and Obama's advantage over Hillary v. McCain becoming apparent, plus his advantages in the upcoming primaries--the best Hillary can hope for will is a split of the remaining delegates, whereupon the super-delegates, at the urging of Dean and the DNC, will nominate Clinton.
If she does not withdraw, Obama will go ahead and campaign against McCain anyway, as the presumptive nominee, between May and August, leaving her to wander around like the last living dodo bird, technically still alive, but with no chance at a meaningful existence.
February 14, 2008 9:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
To see who someone might "struggle to win this nomination in spite of popular will", google "Obama knows ballot".
February 14, 2008 11:29 AM | Reply | Permalink