Below The Beltway

It’s officially all over but the voting and both campaigns spent the end of the day yesterday starting up the spin game that will no doubt be going full force about 12 hours from now.

First, the Obama campaign says that unless Hillary Clinton wins big in both Ohio and Texas, the game is over:

By their own clear definition of where they expected and believed they needed to be after Ohio and Texas, the Clinton campaign will fall terribly short on March 4th. The Obama pledged delegate lead stands at 162. The question for the Clinton campaign if they do not significantly erode that lead on Tuesday is what plausible path they have to even up the pledged delegates in the remaining contests.

There are 611 pledged delegates left after March 4th’s contests. They would need to win at least 62% of all remaining pledged delegates to get back to even. And while they have often talked about Pennsylvania – where public polls show their lead deteriorating rapidly – the Wyoming caucuses on March 8th and Mississippi primary or March 11th could potentially result in more pledged delegates netted to the winner than on March 4th.

So it is clear that narrow popular vote wins in Texas and Ohio will do very little to improve their nearly impossible path to the nomination. If they do not win Texas and Ohio by healthy double digit margins – and they led by healthy double digit margins as recently as two weeks ago - they will be facing almost impossible odds to reverse the delegate math.

The Clinton spin, meanwhile, is far less ambitious:

[I]f Clinton wins the popular vote in Ohio and Texas, she’s staying in the race.

Even if she loses the delegate race in Texas.

No doubt, this will make heads explode in Chicago.

Interestingly enough, a new Washington Post poll would seem to lend credence to this strategy as boneheaded as it might be:

Two-thirds of Democrats say a victory in either Ohio or Texas would be reason enough for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) to keep her historic bid for the party’s presidential nomination alive, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Two losses, however, would dramatically change the equation. Only 29 percent of Democrats said Clinton should drop out if she loses one of the two big states, but that number jumps to 51 percent if she loses both. About two-thirds of men and liberals indicated that she should give up her bid under those circumstances. And among those closely following the campaign, nearly six in 10 said she should quit the race if she loses both Texas and Ohio, states that her husband, former president Bill Clinton, has called must-wins.

Finally, Jonathan Chait at The New Republic injects some much-needed reality into the spin game:

With the Clinton campaign now saying they will stay in the race even if they lose delegates in Texas, it’s worth putting into perspective just how difficult it would be for them to close Barack Obama’s lead in pledged delegates. For Clinton to pull ahead, she will need to win 57% of the remaining pledged delegates. To keep that number from rising even higher, they of course need to win 57% of the delegates on Tuesday, which would mean getting at least 213 delegates to Obama’s 161 — a 52 delegate advantage. If they net anything below 52 delegates, they fall even further behind. This is the key number to keep in mind when watching the election returns.

Given the recent polls, it just seems unlikely that she’ll be able to pull this off.