The state of the race


I’m an Obama supporter, but I am increasingly frustrated by the countless Clinton post-mortems that are being published. The race isn’t over until everyone votes or one of the two remaining candidates drops out. Clinton could still win, although it is unlikely.

How unlikely is it? All one need do is crunch the numbers to see what an uphill battle she has.

MSNBC currently gives Obama 1,192 pledged delegates and Clinton 1,036 pledged delegates. That leaves 1,025 pledged delegates still up for grabs.

If Obama were to win exactly 43% of all the remaining pledged delegates (that is, if Clinton were to win 57%) then the final tally would be 1,633 pledged delegates for Obama and 1,620 for Clinton. Getting 43% of the remaining pledged delegates is the worst Obama can perform and still maintain a slight edge. If they were to split all the remaining pledged delegates 50/50 then Obama’s margin of victory would be 159: Obama 1705, Clinton 1549.

In other words, the only way Clinton can overtake Obama in the pledged delegate count is if she wins at least 58% of all the remaining delegates.

Now, that’s not impossible. Unlikely, sure. But not unimaginable.

One concern with the way the press is stomping on Clinton is that were she to win Ohio and Texas, even by a narrow margin, that could well be spun as a major victory. But if you just do the math you realize that anything other than blow-out wins by Clinton is the same as defeat.

A little less gleeful Hillary-bashing and a little more factual reporting from the media would be nice. 

Number Crunching, February 8 edition


Assuming NBCs current estimate of pledged delegates (Obama 861, Clinton 858) is correct, and assuming that Clinton and Obama split all 796 superdelegates 50/50, then . . .  were Obama to win exactly 50% of the remaining pledged delegates the total delegate count would be: 2,026 Obama, 1,997 Clinton.

Assuming Open Left’s current estimate of pledged delegates (Obama 896, Clinton 878, with 18 still outstanding) is correct, and assuming that Clinton and Obama split all 796 superdelegates 50/50, then . . . were Obama to win exactly 50% of the remaining pledged delegates, the total delegate count would be: 2,034 Obama, 1,990 Clinton.

The missing 26 delegates are currently pledged to John Edwards. Florida and Michigan are not being taken into account in making these calculations.

Krugman and Obama, take 2


Over the past few months the Paul Krugman’s attacks against Obama have intensified. His earlier criticisms of Obama centered on his observation that Obama’s healthcare proposal was less progressive than

The Cranky Historian

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