May 23 Delegate Math

PocketNines provides more math than I can handle. Go have a look. His method looks pretty sound and, if it is, confirms what I had suspected. Here are some of his conclusions:

Seat the Michigan and Florida delegations in full, as-is, and Obama needs 138 delegates of any kind as we sit here today. 43 of those are guaranteed by the final three primaries or public declaration, leaving 95 needed. Obama will get a huge percentage of 69 other identifiable delegates in the calendar through June 21, leaving him roughly 26-41 delegates short. The group out of which he needs that 26-41 is 208 delegates, or 12.5%-19.7%.

and

31 [delegates for Obama] in Michigan right now. That's worst case. That's why Ickes made that little-noticed, jaw-dropping argument yesterday. You have to be really familiar with the math to appreciate why this staggeringly hypocritical ass did it. Not only did Ickes vote to strip Michigan of its delegates originally back in August and now is screaming at the top of his voice that it's outrageous that Michigan has been stripped, now he wants Michigan to let Clinton keep her 73 delegates but strip Obama of the 31 he got at the district level.

. . .

Maddow is dead-on that the Clinton goal for the May 31 meeting is merely to come out with some result that is being kicked down the road in appeals. But Ickes knows that Obama can surely see the mathematical inevitability in what I just explained, that Obama can call the big bluff by agreeing to Michigan and Florida in full, and then what will the Clintons claim in outrage? The fog they're thriving off of disappears. So Ickes is trying to pre-empt Obama's pre-emption by laying groundwork for further fog - that Obama agreeing to seat the delegations in full is too favorable to Obama because he got 31 and deserves 0. Ickes knows that nobody besides a few bloggers really knows that Obama already has 31, so he's hoping to get in front of the dawning awareness. (It hasn't been in Obama's interest to claim that number until as late in the process as possible, either.)

But the 31 exist, and the math is inexorable. While Obama would need 138 delegates after agreeing to seat Michigan and Florida in full, as-is, 43 are in a group of 100% guaranteed, 69 are in a group of 85-99% guaranteed, and 208 are the rest. Obama has been winning "the rest" by a huge ratio for a loooong time now, and many of us personally know people in that latter group who are just waiting for the primaries to officially end to declare. The closer Obama comes to 26-41 supers in the next week, the more likely I believe he is to agree to full seating.

And here is TPM discussing the May 31 Democratic Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting.



Rumors are that Clinton (or her husband) is willing to end the campaign if she is offered the VP slot, and that Obama said no. Other rumors are that she is considering dropping out regardless, but this decision would defy all recent comments and actions. As discussed above, it's all over anyway. The question is about how she goes out, and how that effects Obama's general election campaign as well as Clinton's ongoing political life.