TX, OH and "THE MATH"

After Hillary's big win in OH and squeaker in TX, the delegate picture remains the same - it looks like a net pick-up of 10 - 15 for Clinton. Jonathan Alter has a good newsweek article illustrating the delegate math which makes it impossible for Hillary catch Barack in pledged delegates, ever giving her the benefit of the doubt on the primaries to come.

So at the end of regulation, Hillary's the nominee, right? Actually, this much-too-generous scenario (which doesn't even account for Texas's weird "pri-caucus" system, which favors Obama in delegate selection) still leaves the pledged-delegate score at 1,634 for Obama to 1,576 for Clinton. That's a 58-delegate lead.

Let's say the Democratic National Committee schedules do-overs in Florida and (heavily African-American) Michigan. Hillary wins big yet again. But the chances of her netting 56 delegates out of those two states would require two more huge margins. (Unfortunately the Slate calculator isn't helping me here.)

So no matter how you cut it, Obama will almost certainly end the primaries with a pledged-delegate lead, courtesy of all those landslides in February. Hillary would then have to convince the uncommitted superdelegates to reverse the will of the people. Even coming off a big Hillary winning streak, few if any superdelegates will be inclined to do so. For politicians to upend what the voters have decided might be a tad, well, suicidal.

For all of those who have been trashing me for saying this thing is over, please feel free to do your own math. Give Hillary 75 percent in Kentucky and Indiana. Give her a blowout in Oregon. You will still have a hard time getting her through the process with a pledged-delegate lead.
The Clintonites can spin to their heart's content about how Obama can't carry any large states besides Illinois. How he can't close the deal. How they've got the Big Mo now.
Tell it to Slate's Delegate Calculator.

So what this leaves us with is the "Super Delegates". I don't think there is any way the Supers will overturn the will of the voters as expressed by the pledged delegates. Her only hope is that she can bloody Obama so badly that the remaining Super Delegates will deem him unelectable in the fall and will rush to her standard. The obvious problem with that unlikely scenario is, were it to take place, one half of the democratic party would feel robbed and Clinton would not be viewed as a legitimate candidate by either democratic Obama voters or the public at large.

The only hope for a democratic victory this fall is for the party elders (who is that? Dean, Gore, Edwards, Kerry Pelosi, Ried ??) to intervene or, more likely, for the remaining Super Delegates to commit to Obama to avoid the mutually assured destruction that is likely to play out over the next seven weeks, if not longer.