Obama Magic Number at: 133

Like a magic number posted by a 1st Place MLB team at the close of the regular season ... Obama is nearing the end, and the Democratic nomination.


According to obamaiswinning.com:


The delegate math gives Obama a mortal lock on the nomination

As promised, I've updated the delegate totals and the magic number tracker post-Pennsylvania for ObamaIsWinning.com. As you can see, the most important thing that happened on Tuesday night is that Barack Obama reduced the number of pledged delegates he needs to win to hit the magic number down to 133.

In many ways, the campaign is now a one man marathon, with Barack Obama nearing the completion line with each passing primary. To the extent that it's a contest, it is a baseball game in the 9th inning and Barack Obama is ahead by 20 runs.

The problem of course is that the media is incapable of reporting on it this way, partly because superdelegates are dragging their feet. Ultimately, how they portray Barack Obama's victory matters, so what we want to see is a narrative where Obama crosses the finish line in triumph. I wrote about this late Wednesday morning and I'll take another whack it again on Thursday.

1. The Real Magic Number is (still) 1,627

1,627 is fifty percent plus one of the 3,253 democratically selected delegates to the Democratic nominating convention.

Once a candidate has 1,627 of these "pledged" delegates, he or she will win the nomination -- unless the 795 superdelegates overturn the judgment of voters.

And that's not going to happen.

2. Magic Number Tracker

Here's where the race stands after Pennsylvania, using the Obama campaign's numbers. 408 pledged delegates remain to be chosen.




Note that the Clinton and Obama percentages don't total 100% because John Edwards has 18 delegates, so it is theoretically possible that neither candidate will reach 1,627. (In reality, this won't happen, obviously.)

The clock is running out. We have now selected nearly 90% of the pledged delegates that will go to the convention in Denver. In many ways, Barack Obama isn't just winning -- he's already won.

3. The delegate math gives Barack Obama a mortal lock on the nomination

Just look at it from Hillary Clinton's perspective. As you can see from this chart, even if she were to win 58% of the remaining pledged delegates -- a near impossibility -- she would still trail Barack Obama by 100 pledged delegates at the convention and would need two-thirds of all uncommitted superdelegates to support her campaign. There's no way two-thirds of those superdelegates will support a coup against the voters.

The most likely scenario has her trailing by about 150 pledged delegates. She'll need to win three-quarters of the superdelegates at that point -- an absurdly impossible challenge.



(Superdelegate totals from demconwatch.blogspot.com.)

:)

You'll never see this stuff there.

They don't listen to logic, reason, facts, and math. It's like kryptonite to them. Likewise, it's been repeatedly pointed out that Hillary would have to win each remaining primary by something like 30-35% just to pull ahead of Obama in the pledged delegate count.

You see, they use a different kind of logic. They dismiss many of Obama's wins as insignificant. They knock him for winning "blue" states. They claim that Hillary has won the only states that really matter. They knock the caucuses as "sham caucuses" (nevermind that Bill Clinton didn't have much problem with them). They claim that Hillary has won most of the Democratic vote (they assume that any and all crossover repug votes went to Obama). Using this as their basis, they hope they can go into the convention and convince enough superdelegates (and even pledged delegates) to overturn the primary results, and coronate Hillary instead.

Doesn't want this to end

It doesn't go by pledged delegates only.

Saying that if a superdelegate votes against the national total of pledged delegates that they are "overturning" the judgement of the voters is dubious at best. Superdelegates may choose to vote for the people that won the most pledged delegates in their state, or in their district. Or, they may go by the national popular vote winner.

Obama has great math on his side. No need to stretch the argument.

But, he has to cross the finish line. Being ahead at the end is not the goal.

Reaching 50%+1 is a huge mark.

The remaining uncommitted SDs will care.

There are many who have stated that the reason they're waiting is for this very landmark.