Tête-à-Tête-Tête

… we do so belatedly, because we have been busy with other things. We only speak for smijer, though we expect jadarm & Buck concur.

Excluding Michigan and Florida, Obama has won the pledged delegate race. With 86 pledged delegates remaining unsecured, Obama leads Clinton by 161 delegates. If Clinton wins all of the uncommitted pledged delegates (and she won’t), she is still about 75 delegates short.

Clinton’s last-ditch angle is to hope for the seating of Florida and Michigan delegates in a way favorable to her. Let’s look at a best case scenario for her.

Michigan’s delegation, if seated under the original rules, would have included 128 pledged delegates. Based on the results from the January 15 primary, where only her name of the top three contenders appeared on the ballot, 73 of those delegates would have gone to Hillary Clinton. 55, presumably, would not have. It’s impossible to say that all of the remaining delegates (whose election was made under the rubrick of “uncommitted”) would be seated for Barack Obama. It is unlikely, however, that less than 45 of them would be. It is possible that 10 “uncommitted” delegates would vote for Edwards or others on the first ballot, but unlikely that more than one one or two of them would vote for Clinton since they are representing voters who voted against Clinton in the primary. Under the rosiest scenario in MI, then, we have Clinton picking up 75 new delegates from Michigan, and Obama 45, with a couple of “uncommitteds” left to vote for others. Clinton net 30.

Now, in Florida, the situation is a little murkier, since Edwards was named on the ballot (as was Obama), along with Clinton. Here we have 185 pledged delegates that Florida gave up by holding their primary on January 25 instead of following the DNC calendar. Clinton would get at least 105 of them, and Obama at least 67 of them. Edwards would have secured 13 delegates if the contest counted, but with him out of the race, two of them have already switched to Obama (which would bring Obama’s count to 69). A generous suggestion for Clinton would be that all of Edwards’ 13 will flip on the first ballot, and 8 will go to her while only 5 go to Obama, roughly mirroring her margin of victory over Obama in the primary. That makes for a total in Florida of 113 for Clinton and 72 for Obama. That’s a net of 41 for Clinton.

Total for Florida and Michigan: Clinton net 71.

Now for the hard part: the arithmetic. Under favorable rules, Clinton gains a net of 71 pledged delegates based on the seating of Florida and Michigan. Under the absurdly generous assumption that she wins every remaining pledged delegate in the upcoming three primaries, she still needed 75 pledged delegates. Best case for Clinton: Obama wins, +4 pledged delegates.

Now, of course one can conjure fabulous scenarios where Clinton wins the pledged count. If, for instance, none of the uncommitteds in Michigan go to Obama. This is no more likely than the possibility that Clinton will win all 86 remaining pledged delegates in SD, MT and PR, and would not put her over the top unless Clinton does manage to net 50 or more of these remaining delegates.

Without a major superdelegate revolt, then, it’s as we all know it to be. Obama has won. On to November. Sorry to take so many words to tell you what you probably already knew.