Sunday, March 16, 2008

As reported by Ben Smith at Politico, the results of the Iowa Caucus are not 16-15-14 for Obama-Clinton-Edwards, as we have all guesstimated since January. Turns out the folks who went to the County Conventions (the people chosen by the initial caucus results) largely switched away from Edwards and towards Obama. The tally is now 25 for Obama, 14 for Clinton, and 6 for Edwards. This is a net gain of 10 delegates for Obama.

Clinton now needs to win 373 of the 576 remaining pledged delegates to enter the convention with the lead, or 64.8%. This means that if she wins Pennsylvania by 20 points, 60%-40%, it becomes even harder for her to win; she then would need to win 66.5% of the remaining delegates.

Anyway, the basic point still stands - Clinton only wins the nomination at this point by getting the remaining 300-some-odd Superdelegates to vote against the pledged delegate lead held by Obama, a situation that would likely disenfranchise a significant number of the new Democratic voters that have driven turnout so high in the primary, and causing low turnout for the general election. That doesn't mean she wouldn't win in the fall, but it would likely be another 50%-50% split election with Florida and Ohio determining the president, and so far the Democrats haven't done well in that situation.

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