Not Enough

Hillary did really well today. She fought the good fight, pulled out a very nice win in Ohio with a comfortable margin, and pulled out the surprise squeaker in the Texas primary. There are 10 states left. Wyoming up next, then Mississippi and Pennsylvania on April 22nd. Obama's delegate lead is too large at this point. The superdelegates are no help either, they aren't all going her way. But even if they did, the more delegates they both accumulate, the less weight statistically the supers have.

Many of the party wonks, like Charlie Cook, Chris Nelson and others, have already looked at the math. It's clear. There are just not enough delegates outstanding for her to win. The problem was that long chain of unbroken state wins. He is about 160 or so delegates ahead. Even if she was to win Pennsylvania by 25% she would not pick up enough delegates. Don't forget that her campaign failed to file the paperwork in PA and she will be short a full slate of delegates who can support her. It is the same story in the other states, even with a blow out win she will finish behind Obama.

This leaves Obama with a problem, a problem that will be sitting on 1,200 or so delegates. One strategy would be to offer her the VP slot. Barack Obama will probably wait on that until he sees what the party is going to do about this situation.

The one thing that party does not want is Mark Penn and Co. beating up on the probable nominee for the next couple of months. I keep pointing out the disparity between the Republican and Democratic turnout. It will be tighter in the general election, but it would be a very serious mistake to underestimate the GOP. The party knows that. They will try and force some solution here.