New Math Same as Old Math Only Tougher

After the Ohio and Texas primaries I wrote about how Hillary was less likely to win the nomination afterwards than she was before. Today after the Pennsylvania primary, she is even worse off. This is after all a delegate race.

Hillary to use a basketball reference has been trading baskets with Obama even though she is down by 20. All the trading of baskets accomplished has been to eat up valuable game time and put her in an even deeper hole.

Just to review the math. Before Pennsylvania Hillary needed 64% of remaining delegates to have a majority of pledged delegates. Today she needs 68%. Assuming Hillary has a fantastic day on May 6th and split the delegates evenly she would then need 81% of the remaining delegates. Any of this seem remotely likely.

So then it comes down to Super Delegates. Since the Texas and Ohio primaries (arguably the worst stretch of the campaign for Obama) 52 Super Delegates have declared endorsements. 37 of them have chosen Obama and 15 for Clinton. There are 303 Supers left to declare, it would be insane to think that the majority would support Clinton despite the fact that she lost the delegate race.

So the bottom line is despite Clinton's willingness to take this to it's completion, the race is over. The only thing she is doing is making Obama stronger. Barack is much more prepared for a general election than he was prior to Ohio and Texas. He has also had the benefit of the race registering several hundred thousand new voters in the process. The race is over and the seeds for success have been laid for the general election.