This process is entirely about numbers, and one in particular: 270.  That's how many electoral votes Obama needs to be the next President of the United States.

The most mathematically rigorous statistical analysis in the history of electoral projection - Nate Silver's fivethirtyeight.com - shows Obama going from a 3:2 to a 2:1 favorite this past week.  Silver's analysis shows Obama likely to win 304 electoral votes, with a 20% likelihood that Obama will win by a landslide (350+ electoral votes).

All of those numbers are up from last week.

So long as those numbers hold - just as Obama's delegate lead became ever more insurmountable as the primary season continued - Obama is doing fine.

Don't buy into the media-fed meme that Obama must win "the pundit race," which is really what you're talking about.  Yes, the pundits have been down on Obama all week.  But to judge by the polling data, the voters have been up on him ... substantially.

Just as Team Obama focused on delegates rather than punditry in the primaries, they'll focus on electoral votes rather than punditry from now until November.  Because they know what he needs to win ...

... and what he needs to win are 270 electoral votes.