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Jamie Dupree's Washington Insider

Posted: 9:26 p.m. Wednesday, April 23, 2008

The Delegate Math Doesn't Really Change 

By Jamie Dupree

While Hillary Clinton enjoyed the day after her solid win in Pennsylvania, the delegate math did not improve for her in the Democratic Presidential race.

Clinton will come out with an advantage in delegates from the Keystone State, but only an edge of between 10 and 12 delegates overall.

That will reduce Barack Obama's lead to around 130 delegates, again proving how difficult it is for Clinton to catch up and how hard it is for Obama to get rid of Clinton.

"Senator Clinton used up her last, best chance to cut appreciably into Barack Obama's elected delegate lead," said Obama Campaign Manager David Plouffe.

"She came up short.  In fact, she barely made a dent," said Plouffe.

The result was almost identical to what happened in Ohio on March 4, when Clinton won the Buckeye State by ten points and got an edge of ten delegates.

Basically, Clinton has to win every remaining primary by a 15-20 point margin - and even then - she probably won't be able to erase Obama's lead in pledged delegates.

That again shifted the focus onto the over 300 superdelegates who remain uncommitted - and now hold the key for both parties.

Obama won two more superdelegates on Thursday, one from Oklahoma (Gov. Brad Henry) and one from Nebraska.  Clinton added only one, Rep. John Tanner (D-TN.)

That only reinforced the reality that Clinton needs waves of superdelegates coming to her side right now and not some kind of dribbling and drabbling over the next few weeks.

Chances are, it's not going to happen.  But then again, the chances of the word "bitter" taking over the Democratic race about two weeks ago didn't seem likely either.

 

 
 
 

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