All these analyses assume that nothing will happen to give Clinton major momentum going into the final set of primaries. So far, neither candidate has been able to build up an overwhelming head of steam, but that doesn't mean it still couldn't happen.

I have no hard evidence to back this up, but my feeling is still that Hillary is the default choice for most voters. To win a primary, Obama has to change minds. While it's unlikely, a hard-core gaffe by Obama (as one of his supporters, the South Carolina the-Clintons-are-race-bating memo and the Farrakhan moment were both a bit frightening), could push people back to the default in large numbers.

Again, I'm not saying this is likely, but just because the race has been momentum-proof so far, doesn't mean it will continue to be. History repeats itself only until it doesn't.

Senator Clinton has every right to stay in until the winner is determined. Front-runners have been tripped up by scandals, gaffes or illness before.

She must know that the numbers do not add up unless there is a major change to the dynamics of the campaign. That being said, the "throw as much mud and see if any sticks" is a terrible campaign strategy and damaging to the interests of the party and the American people.

I hope she runs a clean and positive campaign after March 4th. The scorched earth campaign will harm the Clinton legacy and her effectiveness as a legislator.

If Obama is given 0 delegates from Michigan, Clinton would be ahead if you seated Florida and Michigan under that scenario.

I sort of think the campaign should go on past Tuesday ... the infrastructure building is valuable, and you don't want the PA newspapers to complain that their voters didn't get a chance to have a say.

Too late, the Hillary campaign has officially jumped the shark. General Clark, giving his endorsement to Hillary, claims her experience is much more relevant to being Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces then John McCains.

Poor John, he should have went to Wellsley and stayed home and baked cookies and raised a kid, rather then that whole Father and GrandFather being Admirals, the Naval Academy, the Officer Training, Command and Staff College, war time fighter Pilot, War veteran, POW, crap.

What was he thinking...

I am sure when General Clark needed a leader, when he need someone to take command of a situation and lead, the first thought he has is of bringing Hillary on board.

The problem here is that if Clinton does not make up significant ground on March 4, even a big change in momentum won't be enough. The thing about proportional delegate math is that you don't need to do that well to get a lot of delegates - 40% - 45% of the vote is usually enough to keep things reasonably close. Plus a number of the remaining states lean toward Obama pretty significantly: NC, MS, SD, MT, WY. I would imagine that Clinton might be able to run up the score in WV and KY, but that is only 79 delegates combined. Obama looks to be pretty competitive everywhere else even if momentum turns against him. So winning in Ohio and Texas is pretty crucial for Clinton.

Poor John, he should have went to Wellsley and stayed home and baked cookies and raised a kid, rather then that whole Father and GrandFather being Admirals, the Naval Academy, the Officer Training, Command and Staff College, war time fighter Pilot, War veteran, POW, crap.

All of which has led the Great Warrior to conclude that the way to win in Iraq (which victory he can't define) is to bomb Iran. I'll take Hillary over McCain any day.

That said, Bill Richardson told AFP that whoever has a lead in delegates on Tuesday should be the nominee. A quasi-endorsement of Obama. I think he's just keeping his powder dry in case of a major upset by HRC.

As one of Marc's commenters noted, a 520-461 edge for Hillary the rest of the way is only a gain of 59 delegates, not 80.

And since Marc's point was that he was running the numbers under assumptions very favorable to Hillary, that means Hillary's best-case scenario is even worse than Marc thinks it is, and his conclusion is that there's no way for Hillary to win this thing.

Unless the story about Obama's having fathered 2 black children gets some traction. ;^)

I'm having trouble figuring out the scenario by which Clinton still wins this thing.

Buyer's remorse.

The Clinton camp is staying in for now (and will continue to do so if they win OH and TX) in the hope that either through Obama's doing or theirs, he is rendered unelectable. It's not impossible to imagine a scenario where he starts getting under 40% in the remaining states. It is highly unlikely at this point, though, which is why they need popular-vote victories in both big states on Tuesday to justify staying in.

I've been running scenarios on a spreadsheet for weeks now, and it was clear going into Wisconsin that if Hillary lost there, buyer's remorse would be her only shot.

I have made a rule in my own conversations about all of this: Anyone who argues that Michigan and Florida *should* be seated with the polling totals as they now stand, from those two states, is not credible. It's simply not a credible position to assert the results from those two states are legitimate.

The rule has made conversations about this whole situation alot easier. However, it should be noted, that Bill Press takes this untenable and indefensible position, and when I have challenged him on it, he shrugs his shoulders and wrote "count all the votes--it's the American way."

As for **pledged delegate** math, this race was nearly over the day after Chesapeake Tuesday. After Wisconsin, the door slammed on Hillary.

I like to imagine the strategy of Camp Hillary is to stay in a virtually hymen-ed race just in case Obama is caught packing a pipe with the American flag or contracts SARS or maybe avian flu.

Miracles not math, neh?

If things stay pretty even on Tuesday, there will be a move to get Florida and Michigan into this. Whether it is by counting the elections that already took place, or having a re-do. That will change the delegate count.

Will Hillary Clinton continue if she wins either Texas or Ohio?
While Barack Obama is now leading in opinion polls in Texas, he is still behind in Ohio & Rhode Island. If the last 11 contests are anything to go by, Barack tends to close the gap and go past Hillary in the last few days before the primary.

There is a possibility however that Hillary Clinton could win Ohio. The question arises, does she then fold her tent and go home or does she take this as a signal to keep going. The Clintons are known to be fighters, so chances are she will want to continue thus causing ripples in the Democratic party.

It will then be time for Senators, Members of Congress, Al Gore and other Democratic party elders to step forward and endorse Barack Obama to bring this race to an end. The longer this race goes on the more nasty it will get and that can only help McCain in the general election.

However, if Hillary Clinton wins both Texas and Ohio (which is unlikely) then she will have a case to continue.

please, low tech cyclist....

many of us have very frayed nerves today!
.when i read your comment,
i screamed out,
"oh, no!!" so loud, that the dog jumped off the bed!
until...
i saw the lovely photograph!!!

Like a lot of the commentary on the Sunday shows, this post seems to cover a lot of assumptions - about Clinton's appeal, about momentum - er, O-mentum, about changes we can't yet predict. I agree, in a generalized scenario where Obama just gets more and more popular, she can't win, and it doesn't mae sense to stay in. That's not exactly what's been happening - if it were, Obama wouldn't be giving up on Rhode Island and watching Ohio stay close and quite possibly go in her favor. Results that show her strong in Ohio, and even keeping him close in Texas (I have a hard time seeing her win it, with all the convoluted math and process involved) will tell us - and the press - something about Obama's appeal that's not growing. That alone is a reason to continue to explore her viability. And though these "scenarios" put her behind, it does strike me that a scenario which puts her within 100 delegates of him is not a scenario that proves, overwhelmingly, that he's domiating the contest enough to rule her out completely. I think that's the really hard case scenario, where the superdelegates may be pressured to go with the absolute higher delegate getter... but that may not be entirely the answer.

Finally, Gregor, I sympathize with the absolutist position re Florida and Michigan... but something will have to be done in regards to these two states, and I suspect "do over" votes make even less sense than seating based on the results as they are now. There may be other, negotiated compromises; but I think Obama supporters are kidding themselves that we'll get a convention without dealing in some way with representation from two major states, and in a way that can't simply be given over to Obama... or to Clinton. And that it's going to be hard to not use actual primary election results at least as a starting point for any negotiated settlement.

Two things:

(a) a major, major Obama slip that invalidates his candidacy before the convention. Chances of this are very slim, but stranger things have happened. Odds are 1 in 10 at best - but no reason to fold the tent yet;

(b) Clinton picks up 2 out of 3 from Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania, and establishes herself as a candidate who can win big states. She may still be relevant for 2012, 2016, or as Senate Majority Leader if she later concedes with grace and campaigns hard for Obama.

So many "ifs"...

The problem with all of them is: Clinton is not waiting around to see if Obama slips up. She's throwing mud and dissing his supporters.

If this remained a (for lack of a better word) gentlemanly affair, I'd be all for her staying in through the convention. Let them continue a dialogue on Iraq, on healthcare, on the environment, on Supreme Court justices - all the reasons folks should vote for either Democrat this time around.

But stop with the trashing! We need to emerge united and strong to beat Teflon McMaverick in November.

If superdelegates must merely ratify the elected delegate victor, even if the margin is a few %, then the Party's first order of business must be to abolish superdelegates for the next election.

The supers are professionals who want to win; if there are glaring defects in the support coalition of the winner, then they are there to over-ride, and they will.

Jeremy, this "if only she played nicely" logic is, like so many things, wishful. That's not how politics works. And despite a lot of "who, us?" from Obama folks, this race has had sharp elbows thrown from both sides. If she stays in it's because she believes she has a chance at succeeding, supported by people who believe in her... much the way Obama is doing.

Furthermore, McCain is not "teflon" nor, as should be clear after the past week or so, does he have any intention of playing any "nicer" than Clinton is now. McCain is flawed, touchable, and leading a party that can't really come together because of deep philosophical fissures. Democrats, whoever we nominate, are well positioned to challenge the GOP, and we shouldn't let the media... or our fear of a protracted, necessary discussion... determine when and how the primary race ends. If Obama succeeds in winning substantially more of the roughly 45-50% of Democrats currently voting regularly for Clinton than he has been on the 4th and in the remaining states, then yes, it's over, and we have a clear winner. We're not there yet. And it's not Hillary Clinton's fault that people who vote for her are not particularly attracted to Obama. That's something the Obama folks really do need to solve, and not by saying Clinton isn't playing nice.

that's something that obama folks really do need to solve...

i would hope that before casting a vote in an economically suppressed state for two people who cannot reveal their tax returns...people might consider what the ethical implications may be in that withholding of information.
the issues of character were so compelling and are now even more compelling.....the intense support that barack obama has received, is in part, a reaction against the political landscape created by the clintons and bush years.
as chelsea clinton has taken time off from working for a hedge fund to relate sympathetically to the folks in ohio, while her parents refuse to show their tax returns, it is difficult to understand the resonance of true empathy there.
whatever financial dealings have occurred for the clintons, wherever the moneys have come from that were infused in her campaign, will be buried under the replays of saturday night live and the cast of desperate housewives and sitcom stars from the eighties.
....it is not just about "playing nice."
character matters in human beings and in leadership.
having a leader who stays on higher ground and does play fairly is part of the reason why so many cynical and disengaged people have been drawn to the obama campaign.
you may laugh about hope and character in a cynical way.
....you may ridicule hope and character as being impractical.
but hope and character are nothing to make jokes about.
when that is gone, you have lost everything.

and i hope that we will not lose that beautiful flame to the darkness once again.

Inevitably discussion comes up of seating the delegates from MI and FL, as well as snarking about the superdelegates. The way I see it unfolding is thus-- if Obama is leading in pledged delegates by a non-trivial amount at the end, not including MI and FL, then the superdelegates are in an ideal position to essentially put the whole issue to bed by casting the majority of their votes for Obama, and then the MI/FL delegates can be seated at the Dem convention without changing the end result. Of course, that won't please everyone, but this shows how superdelegates can serve an useful role in preventing the nasty fight that might erupt if MI/FL delegates were enough to turn the race into a virtual tie. After all, whatever you may say about allowing voters' voice to be heard in these states, these primaries were NOT contested and the MI/FL voters did not have the same opportunity to become informed on the candidates as other states did.

Florida's governor is talking about holding a new primary.

Anyone who thinks Clinton doesn't win it going away is delusional.

What will that do to the Obama party line, I wonder?

As I've been saying all along, this won't be about delegates. It will be about electability, and Clinton is winning all the demographics that the Democrats will need in November. Cite: Translating from exit polls, Clinton has a huge lead in white and Hispanic Democrats, and is ahead (but within a margin of error) among Democrat voters.

If the demographic patterns don't change dramatically in Obama's favor, Clinton will win Ohio and Rhode Island, will make Texas a fight among Democrats (the independents may give Obama the election), and will win the overall Democrat vote.

She has every right--and more importantly, plenty of cash--to stay in the race and make these stats clear.

Interesting, Cal, that you speak of electability and then use only Democratic-voter numbers to make your case. Last time I checked, registered Democrats made up 42.6 percent of the country in 2004. That's quite a sizable percent, but not a majority of the country. Somehow I don't see Democrats rushing to vote for a Republican if Clinton loses, just like I wouldn't rush to vote for McCain (or any Republican, for that matter) if Obama lost. So if Obama does well among independents, that seems to boost his case for electability, does it not?

"It will be about electability, and Clinton is winning all the demographics that the Democrats will need in November. Cite: Translating from exit polls, Clinton has a huge lead in white and Hispanic Democrats, and is ahead (but within a margin of error) among Democrat voters."

I am not sure how this equates to electability. Your demographics show that Hillary has only the support of a small majority of registered, voting Democrats. The is Democrats only represent not much more than 40% of the electorate. You can't win an election just by getting Democrats to vote for you, unless turnout for the Republican is incredibly low.

Obama is currently beating both Hillary and McCain for the crucial independent vote. If Democrats won't vote for the party nominee even if a small majority of them actually preferred another candidate, we will have a hard time ever winning an election.

As a Democrat I think these two candidates are horrible on policy. The only positive between the two is Obama's ability to draw in the youth vote and entice independents and use that to establish a strong GOTV organization. I think he offers Democrats the best electability math and the longest potential coattails.

My only hope for a Democratic presidency this year is that we increase our majorities in Congress and those increases are mostly with good strong progressives that will make better policy than either of the two top-of-the-ticket choices.

So if Obama does well among independents, that seems to boost his case for electability, does it not?

No, it doesn't, and really, this question just boggles the mind. There's enormous selection bias involved in which independents and Republicans vote in what primary. Consequently, there's literally no evidence--and a great deal of negative support--for the idea that a Dem candidate who has support from independents in the primary can count on it in the general.

He hasn't won the base. Normally, sane political analysts consider that a major, insurmountable defect in a presidential candidate.

Obama has been able to avoid this scrutiny because each of three coalitions help him win one type of a primary. So he wins the Dem vote huge in enough states with 30% or more black voters that no one can say he hasn't won Democrat voters in a big state. He wins caucus primaries with enormous margins because they are dominated by liberals. He wins Virginia and Wisconsin by enormous margins because of independents.

But electoral math and the fundamentals of demographic support strongly predicts that his wins are irrelevant to the overall electability. He is below 40% in white Democrat votes, and lower than that in Hispanic votes. Anyone who thinks he can win the presidency without strong support from these two groups is delusional. And anyone who thinks that McCain won't siphon off more of these voters from Obama than he would from Clinton is dreaming.

Your demographics show that Hillary has only the support of a small majority of registered, voting Democrats.

That was after a lot of wins by Obama. I was actually surprised to see Clinton was ahead--I expected her to take the lead after the March 4th primaries. Her lead will widen after tomorrow (unless things change dramatically, and if they change that much, it's over).

Moreover, the skewed nature of the caucuses overstates Obama's support. This is perfectly fine for delegate counts, but not for electability counts. Most superdelegates know that in a primary vote, Clinton would have won at least a few of the caucus states, and won or narrowly lost the Democrat vote even in caucus states that she lost, due to a huge independent vote.

The fact that Clinton is ahead or even tied, after the string of February losses, is testament to how strong her support is with the base.

But in general, I think you miss the point of Clinton's lead among the Democrats. See my point above. Presidential candidates have never won without their base. It's absurd to bet the nomination on Obama breaking that pattern. And there's no reason to think he'll show strong support with white and Hispanic Democrats (which is well over two thirds of the base) in the remaining primaries.

"having a leader who stays on higher ground and does play fairly is part of the reason why so many cynical and disengaged people have been drawn to the obama campaign"

except that Obama hasn't done what you suggest in the least; instead he's played to basest fears and sexists.

"...and the MI/FL voters did not have the same opportunity to become informed on the candidates as other states did."

Can we stop treating MI and FL as the same? Entirely different situations, and MI delegates should, of course, NOT be seated as is.

This notion, however, that FL voters didn't have the same opportunity to be informed on the candidates is nonsense. If I'm not mistaken, it comes from Obama supporters certain that, if only the Floridians had heard him speak, FL would have gone his way. i.e. the Obama hype machine didn't get to play in FL, and that's not fair! Even though his national ad did run there.

I've spoken with FL voters who are not thrilled with this picture of them as having paid no attention to a national presidential campaign, and who feel they are being punished by their repub counterparts for the date move-up.