Despite all the huffing and puffing over just when and how Hillary Clinton will finally pull a heroic Rocky-II-like comeback knock this black teenager out of the race - all the real numbers say she's already lost.
Barack Obama will be the Democratic Nominee, all he has to do is sit back and wait for it.
And you can prove it for yourself and all your friends with CNN's handy-dandy popiel-o-matic Delegate Calculator.
With this pocket-size tool, You Too, can be a Pundicator.
(Isn't it odd that no-one who actually appears on CNN knows how to use their own website?)
As of today, May 4th - my wife's birthday - the Delegate Calculator indicates that Obama has a lead of 1736 total delegates (with 289 needed to win) and Clinton has a total of 1,599 total delegates (with 426 needed to win).
The only numbers that really matter are the number of delegates needed to win - which again are 289 and 426 respectively. That's how close the nose each of our candidates has come to crossing the finish line.
What we have to remember is that either candidate must reach the magic number of 2025 only using the pledge and Superdelegates that remain, of which - according to the calculator - there only 695.
Simple, very simple, basic math says that in order to win Clinton has to gain 61% of all the remaining delegates. Each time she falls short of that number, it gets larger for the next contest. Obama on the other hand only needs 41%, as long as he stays above that number - HE WINS.
He could lose Indiana, lose North Carolina, lose Kentucky - but as long as he doesn't collapse below 41% - he will be the Nominee. Period.
And if he does better than that, things continually get worse for Clinton.
As of today the results in Guam and some of the recent Superdelegate shifts have not been counted on the calculator but that is of little matter, you and I can put them in ourselves.
Grab the Guam slider and set it 50% Obama/50% Clinton, it automatically allocates 2 delegates to each. That puts Obama at 287 and Clinton at 428 with 691 available. Their percentage requirements to win remain at 41% and 61% respectively.
The latest Zogby Poll for the Indiana Primary gives Obama a one point lead (43/42%) over Clinton. Adding this to the Calculator as best you can (52/48 Obama) gives Obama an additional 37 delegates, bringing him to 1,775 and another 35 for Clinton bringing her to 1,636.
Are you following along at home kiddies? I knew that you were, because this is where it gets fun.
With a small victory in Indiana Obama's Magic Number drops to 250 - and his percentage required for final victory also drops a bit from 41% to 40.3%. Clinton's does the opposite, with still 389 needed to win her required percentage for the remaining delegates shifts upward slightly to 62.8%.
This means simply put, that as time goes one things get worse for her - not better.
Let me just say this again, after this point Clinton has to beat Obama by an average of 22 points on all remaining contests and on all remaining Superdelegates to win the nomination.
Who in their right minds thinks that's gonna happen? (Oh, yeah, most of punditocracy on on CNN, MSNBC, FOX, ABC, NBC, and CBS - except for Chuck Todd who seems to have actually passed 5th Grade math - continues to maintain the ridiculous delusion that Hillary still has a chance to win, silly of me not to notice....)
Ok, let look at North Carolina - where the latest polls places Obama with a nine point lead (46 to 37%) over Clinton. Let's be generous and say that Obama only wins by 8 points (because the slider won't go to nine - damn you CNN!) Obama would receive 62 delegates and Clinton 53. After this contest there are only 504 available delegates, and in order to win Obama would only need to 37.3% of the remaining delegates and Clinton needs a whopping 67% to win.
Anytime she doesn't beat him by greater than that number she falls further behind and can't catch up.
If Clinton doesn't win both West Virginia (where she leads 55/27) and Kentucky (where she has a massive lead) by a pair of double digit 20 point blowouts it's still all over but the whining because those states - with only 28 and 51 delegates at stake respectively - are both too small to make up the difference.
That's right Hillary, "Small States really don't count that much" do they?
Just one week from now - there will only be 425 delegates left (which in reality is an over-estimate since many more Supers will probably be committed by this point next week) and Clinton will need to get 298 or at least 68% of them all (which is assuming that she does blow Barack out by 22 point in Kentucky and again in West Virginia as predicted)
A 22 point landslide is what she needs just to stay even at this point, she has to do much better than that to win.
Once you plug in all the remaining poll estimates, which really only includes Oregon which has Obama up by 6 points, and assume he basically loses every other state by at least 8 points except Puerto Rico where Clinton is strongly supported and there he gets again blown out again by at least 22 points...
You get this:
Even with all that, with every break she could possibly get, Clinton still needs 212 delegates to win, while Obama only needs 95. All of the 287 Superdelegates would have to break for Clinton by 73%. She needs to get almost 3 to 1 of the Supers over Obama to Win. But if Obama just barely manages to squeek by with just 33% of the Supers - it's over, it's done, finito.
He wins.
See?
Your mileage may vary depending on your assumptions generally speaking, and the Calculator isn't perfect, but even if you give her every benefit of the doubt and 2/3 of the Supers - whom she happens to have been leaking lately like water from an old radiator - she still can't win.
By all reasonable measures, she already lost, her campaign is dead - a load of sound and fury signifying nothing - she just hasn't realized or admitted it yet.
Go ahead, try it. see for yourself.
Vyan
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