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The Texas Blue
Advancing Progressive Ideas

No Way Out On Pledged Delegates

CNN's John King just did a little instant touchmap math to show what kind of arguments each candidate can make about the rest of the contests. With the caveat that it was purely hypothetical, King showed what would happen if, alternatively, Senator Clinton won all remaining states 55-45, and what would happen if Senator Obama won all remaining states 65-35. The result is that neither one can get to the finish line on pledged delegates alone, and I'm not even sure either one gets there in either scenario with Michigan and Florida added in. I can't verify his math, but if it is true, it is provocative.

Doing the math

There's no way for either of them can win the nomination without any superdelegate help, but Obama could plausibly get there without much help from the currently uncommitted superdelegates.

Obama currently has a lead of 145 among pledged delegates and 105 among all delegates. There are about 600 additional pledged delegates to go, and about 350 uncommitted superdelegates. If Obama got 60% of the remaining pledged delegates, his overall lead would increase to 220, and he would only need about 65 of the 350 uncommitted superdelegates, while Clinton would need about 285.

If Clinton got 60% of the remaining pledged delegates, she'd pull slightly ahead of Obama. She would then need about 170 of the uncommitted superdelegates, while Obama would need 180.

If they split the remaining pledged delegates 50-50 (pretty likely, since about half of the remaining states favor each candidate), then Obama would need about 125 while Clinton would need 225.

All of this assumes that currently committed superdelegates don't change sides. Also, do-overs in Florida and Michigan would probably tilt things a little towards Clinton, since Florida is bigger than Michigan.

Helpful!

Thanks, Lorenzo.

Rocky Mountain High

The more I look at the scenarios, the more everything channels into one of two outcomes:

1) Concession or

2) It goes to the convention.

Unless something radical changes in either one campaign or another, neither candidate will achieve the "magic number" of delegates. It'll simply be "who has the most delegates after each contest". At this juncture, I can't imagine that either of these strong candidates will concede.

So, on to Denver we go!

Dream Ticket Rumors

I keep hearing of talks of a "Dream Ticket" by the MSM -- would that be a third option to the above post or are the supporters in both camps not dreaming? Personally, it would not be a dream ticket IMO. I don't see it, but people say that they never thought there would be a Kennedy/Johnson ticket either.

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