Hillary's bluff is being called

Further to the last post about delegate numbers, it looks like another swathe of supers is about to fall to Obama. This from the Wall Street Journal :

"Slowly but steadily, a string of Democratic Party figures is taking Barack Obama's side in the presidential nominating race and raising the pressure on Hillary Clinton to give up.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota is expected to endorse Sen. Obama Monday, according to a Democrat familiar with her plans. Meanwhile, North Carolina's seven Democratic House members are poised to endorse Sen. Obama as a group -- just one has so far -- before that state's May 6 primary, several Democrats say.

Who would have guessed that sending intimidatory letters to the Democratic leadership and threatening to tear the party in two unless she got her own way would have elicited such a response?

The Maths of the Democratic Primary Race

Some old news for my opening gambit. If you've been following numbers elsewhere, sorry bout the rehash, I'm just giving myself a jumping off point.

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The politics surrounding the Clinton steamroller are powerful. They have created the impression that we spectators are viewing a real contest, and a close one at that. This is a testament to the ability of the Clinton campaign to maintain that black really is white. The 'close race' narrative they are pushing is up there with her sniper fire story, (recently exposed as a baldfaced lie) as far as its proximity to reality is concerned.

Seemingly forgotten in all the talk of race, character and scandal is that this is a democratic process and at the end of it all, numbers are what matter, not whether Hillary thinks she deserves the Presidency or is well placed to win a General, or Bill thinks that Obama is indulging in a fairytale. The candidate who wins the most votes is the Democratic Party's nominee for President. At this stage Obama has a lead of between 120 and 139 delegates, depending on which major source estimate you prefer. This includes a lead a pledged delegate lead of between 155 (NBC) and 171 (CNN). The overall delegate tallies, according to CNN, are Obama 1625, Clinton 1486. Given that a candidate needs 2024 delegate votes to win the nomination, to have such a lead at this stage of the race means that Obama is basically insurmountable.

Forty-four states and territories have voted, and ten are yet to do so - we are in the endgame. The remaining races are in Pennsylvania, Guam, North Carolina, Indiana, West Virginia, Kentuckey, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Montana and South Dakota. There are 566 pledged delegates to be had across these contests. If Clinton won 55% of all remaining delegates (keeping in mind she has won about 45% to date - which includes big victories in New York, California and Arkansas - and is behind in the polls in half of these states), the tallies will be Obama 1870 to Clinton 1797. These estimates are being extremely generous to Clinton, unless the race drastically shifts off the trajectory it has been solidly following for months now.

Assuming no more make pledges either way until this time, there will then be 380 unaligned Superdelegates, the party officials who make up about 20% of the total voting numbers, who will push a candidate over the line. To get to 2024 votes, Clinton needs 227 of these, or 60%. Given that Superdelegates have moved to Obama at a rate of about 3 to 1 since Super Tuesday this seems pretty unlikely as well. So for Hillary to sneak home by one delegate, she needs to outpoll Obama by double digit margins across all of the remaining states (including states like North Carolina where Obama is currently leading by 13) then arrest her collapsing support amongst the Supers and get them to overturn the sizable delegate lead that Obama is constantly building (Texas just awarded him a further 9 at the end of the Caucus process yesterday, making him the winner in a state that Clinton had claimed as part of her 'comeback'). In short, it ain't gonna happen. If you want to make some free money, put a bet on Obama to be the Democratic nominee while the markets remain open.