Over at Newsweek, Jonathan Alter runs the numbers and finds that it’s just not possible for Hillary Clinton to over take Barack Obama in pledged delegates:
[N]o 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.
This is going to be the debate after tonight, heck probably even starting tonight. If Hillary mathematically can’t overtake Obama in either pledged delegates or the popular vote between now and the last primary, what logic is there for her to stay in the race ? Getting this nomination by virtue of superdelegates — what we called in the early years of the Republic “party bosses” — simply isn’t tenable, meaning we’re back to the same place we were just after Super Tuesday.
March 4th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
[...] Read the rest of this great post here [...]
March 5th, 2008 at 6:22 am
[...] intense campaigning we’ve seen in quite some time. Even if she pulls out a win there, though, it’s still hard to see how she will ever overtake Obama in pledged delegates. [...]
March 5th, 2008 at 8:02 am
[...] Obama’s seemingly insurmountable pledged delegate lead, discussed further here and here, endorsements from 50 or more superdelegates would go a long way toward blunting the [...]
March 5th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
Hillary is trying to get Presidential Privilege, which is that no president can go to jail. She and her husband are summoned to court in California this October, and they are trying to have an excuse for not showing up, get elected in November and the courts are then restricted from proceeding with any prosecution.
Source: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=56868