There's a very interesting piece from Ben Smith over at The Politico highlighting a comment made by Barack Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe regarding the now near-impossibility of Hillary Clinton securing the Democratic Presidential nomination:
"The only way she could do it is by winning most of the rest of the contests by 25 to 30 points. Even the most creative math really does not get her, ever, back to even in terms of pledged delegates. This is not about votes -- it's about delegates"
I think he's right.
For Clinton to even narrowly win the nomination she would have to capture around 60% of the remaining delegates with this figure increasing further if, as expected, Obama wins his birth state of Hawaii next week.
Looking ahead to March - and mindful of the fact that Obama has so far trounced Clinton in Republican states - he is likely to carry Texas on 4th, Wyoming on 8th and Mississippi on 11th before moving on to victory in Indiana, North Carolina, Nebraska and Idaho in May. Even though many polls still show Clinton with a (rapidly shrinking) lead in big states such as Ohio (March 4th) and Pennsylvania (April 22nd), she would have to carry these states by a vast margin to even get close to Obama in the delegate count.
This race is as good as over: Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee.
