Understandably, there's a lot of anger and frayed nerves in the party after this primary. Two excellent but highly iconic politicians have given so much energy to the Democratic Party as a whole. But now we've reached the point where remaining primaries are little more than censuses. As Jerome's "Ed-Neck" map shows, there is no way Obama wins PA. There is also probably no way Hillary wins NC, OR, SD or MT. And there is no way Obama wins KY or WV. Indiana is the only swing state left. And who knows about PR. The real drama is margin of victory in the various states. But since Clinton needs to average about 64% in ALL of the remaining states, she has no real chance to either take the pledged delegate lead or the popular vote lead.

The longer this goes on, the angrier the various factions of the party will be with one another. Obama cannot win without Hillary's core voters - older white female Democrats. And Hillary would not be able to win without Obama's core constituency - African Americans. They are the base of this party and we need BOTH in November. There will be some time for the anger to play out but it's important we begin the process of focusing on McCain.  He is the real enemy as he represents Bush's third term.

Hillary Clinton can do as she wishes. She has every right to fight to the convention. And I expect her hardest core of supporters to do so too. But if the superdelegates follow Richardson and call for this to end, hopefully the great middle of the Democratic party will put aside any lingering doubts about Obama and rally around him for the general election; the same would be true if Hillary were he nominee. But the time for which the primary season honestly helps the party seems to have passed.

She can win the popular vote, she's about 400,000 behind including Flordia but not Michigan.

Latest North Carolina polling has her in statistical dead heat with Obama, he is heavily favored in North Carolina. If he barely wins or loses there thats very bad for him.

She could win Indiana, she'll most likely win Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky and Puerto Rico.

Obama should win South Dakota, Oregon and Montana.

If Clinton comes out of this having won every major state (except Obama's home state) and having won the popular vote. How can the supers deny her the nomination?

Because she will be behind by 100+ delegates, she will have lost some other key states and she will be behind in fundraising as well.

Hillary Clinton can do as she wishes. She has every right to fight to the convention. And I expect her hardest core of supporters to do so too. But if the superdelegates follow Richardson and call for this to end, hopefully the great middle of the Democratic party will put aside any lingering doubts about Obama and rally around him for the general election; the same would be true if Hillary were he nominee. But the time for which the primary season honestly helps the party seems to have passed. By elrod

I have one thing to say: Hillary's supporters ARE the middle of the democratic party.

I suggest you look through numerous comments in other diaries and be prepared to hand out that $100. The Clintons have not given up on the idea of a Florida and/or Michigan revote. Here's their plan as I see it. Obama continues to slide in national polls versus McCain, and in democratic polls versus Hillary. Hillary continues her rise in national polls versus McCain. Hillary wins Pennsylvania big, by at least 15%. She also wins NC, KY, WV, IN, and Puerto Rico. In other words, she ends the primary season in early May as the candidate with all the momentum, and huge press coverage of her great comeback. Meanwhile the press coverage for Obama would no doubt focus on his late primary collapse and how he would be backing into the nomination as a severely damaged candidate.

So the Democrats have a real dilemma on their hands. How can they give the nomination to the candidate who by then would be considered almost a sure loser in the fall. One obvious option would be for the DNC to bite the bullet and put the Michigan and Florida revotes back on the table. Keep in mind that these other primaries will be over by mid-May, making an early June primary in Florida and Michigan very feasible. Basically the nomination would then be decided by the winner of these two states. Obama would have to prove he could reverse Hillary's momentum, and Hillary would have to earn the nomination through a fair revote.

The thing about this scenario is that it isn't really far-fetched. The current trajectory of the nomination battle is basically playing out the way I've outlined it here. That's why the Obama camp would like to put an end to the battle even before the Pennsylvania primary by getting high-profile endorsements from people like Richardson to put pressure on Hillary to concede. The problem I have with that is that I consider Obama to be seriously damaged already, perhaps hopelessly so for the general election. I also consider the shifting focus from the war to the economy as by far the number one issue among voters to be playing into Hillary's strongest asset, which is her attachment to the unqualified economic success of her husband's administration. If the economy is the top topic, she's our best candidate.

All this talk about math, soooo boring.
Not at all relevant. Obama must continue to work hard and campaign honestly like he has done during this campaign, get back on chamge, hope and substance (unlike the last couple of weeks) and win in Pennsylvania or win big in North Carolina.

That will have a much bigger impact than all the bla-di-bla-di-bla about math.

The Politico story, itself a distortion, and those that chose to use it (and spin it/further distort it) over the past couple of days as Obama propaganda are at fault here. This would include this diarist, as well.

Clinton will continue to raise money, despite the "money problems" propaganda, as well. (I've heard she raised somewhere around $3-$4 million in just the past 72 hours, if not more; and she's been doing quite well in that category all month, too. Maybe not as well as Obama; but Obama outraised her in the lead-up to March 4th, and she still held her own.)

Circling back around to the Politico piece, the following was buried in it, at the very end (in terms of how it's been recanted), at least as far as the unnamed Clinton insider's comments were concerned:

"This issue [Wright] is the first thing that's come along that I think is potentially fatal to his electability argument," the strategist said.

Then, of course, there's the other elephant in the room, and that's the reality that neither candidate may not enough votes to obtain the nomination until the Convention. Obama has 1,622 delegates as of this writing, according to the AP.  He needs 2,025 delegates to win. People keep referencing the math; but, the reality is the numbers support BOTH candidates staying in the race all the way down the homestretch. The details get in the way of this type of Obama propaganda all the time. It is what it is.

screws FL and MI and Hillary....

Then I'm DONE!

Don't worry. You'll probably dare to peek out from your bunker when Hillary is our nominee.