Not that I am bursting any bubbles here, but the democratic nomination process is winding down, and it’s looking like Obama has it all but wrapped up- Using a combination of CNN’s Election Center and Slate’s Delegate Calculator, I assess that Obama only needs to pick up an additional 40 Super delegates to win the nomination:
Right now, he’s got 1,904 delegates (1,612 State Delegates and 292 Supers). He needs to hit 2,025. Now, Let’s be very kind to Hillary in the few remaining races, and say she wins the rest of the races (besides Oregon, which Obama has that in his pocket) by 67% on average. I haven’t looked at any polls in the remaining states (Puerto Rico, Montana and South Dakota) but let’s pretend she wins them all.
Obama is still in the lead by 142 State Delegates, putting his total at 1985 total delegates when you factor in his already pledged Supers. That leaves just an additional 40 of the remaining unpledged super delegates that need to sign up with Obama for him to hit the 2,025 number. There are roughly 230 super delegates that have yet to pledge a candidate yet, which means that Obama needs just 17.3% of them to lock it all up.
At this point, I think Hillary is staying in the race in order to save some face- I think if she spends the rest of her time really talking up Obama and helping him defend himself against the coming onslaught of Republican attacks, she can keep herself in the good graces of the party, which she may need in 8 years when she runs again.
Slate (one of my faves) has an article the lays out Clinton and Obama’s main arguments with rebuttals. It’s a great summary of what the two have to say about each other. Now, I believe that Obama is going to be more viable in the general election- he does better with independents. Yes, McCain is going to try to paint him as a liberal, but Obama can easily say McCain is the natural extension of the Bush Administration. (McCain is already taking steps to distance himself from Bush, but I don’t think Obama will have to work that hard to put them back in the same boat.)
Obama’s message of change is going to find traction among republicans. Bush has the lowest approval rating of any recorded president, which means that all but the neo-conservative base are unhappy with his leadership. Clinton pushes away Republicans even more than she alienates a lot of democrats- there are a lot of people that won’t vote for her for the sake that she’s a Clinton. I’m willing to guess more than those that WOULD vote for her based on her namesake.
No matter what happens, I, for one, am tired of the whole damn thing. November can’t come soon enough.
DailyKOS wants us all to do something awesome for Obama on Feb 12th (For those of us that don’t know, that’s Lincoln’s Birthday. For those of us that do know, we work at his birth place). On that day, please make a contribution of $5.01 to the Obama campaign.
Tired of being ignored by the press, the other candidates and probably his campaign staff, Mike Gravel has released a video where he interviews himself. I would like to make Mike the offiicial candidate of the Elbow of Justice, since we pretty much just talk to ourselves, too.