Howard Fineman has suggested that Hillary needs to win big in at least OH, TX to be considered viable. While it is true that I see no viable route for Hillary to claim more pledged delegates than Obama in the upcoming races, I think that Fineman is not quite right-I think if Obama does not win with his typical margins in at least 2 of 3 of OH,TX,PA, that this race will remain a practical draw and the superdelegates could potentially lean to Hillary. This assumes that MI, FL delegates remain unseated.
In other words, the firewall strategy could work for Clintoneven if her pledged delegates gains in the remaining primaries leave her behind Obama.
So fellow Obama supporters, we need to work hard in those big states!
Reasoning below the fold.
UPDATE: FTR, I have always been for Obama. This is to encourage work on his behalf, not to discourage.
Obama is clearly on a roll. I see no reason for this to change in most of the remaining states. Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania could be tricky though. Clinton is known to have big leads in the most recent polls of the first two, and the old style dem machine is backing her in PA.
So I just quickly got on xcel and ran through five scenarios. All make the oversimplistic assumption that pledged delegate totals follow vote/caucus numbers which we know is not quite right, but I did not have time to work through a more sophisticated estimate.
The bottom line: in my opinion, even though there is no plausible scenario where Clinton gets more pledged delegates than Obama, if she wins even 2 of 3 of PA, OH, TX, then the race is still so close that it is not clear how it will go for Obama. He needs to pull off two of those states for a win to get a wide enough delegate margin to clinch, I believe.
The scenarios will give you the idea-
Scenario I:Obama wins all remaining primaries/caucuses by 60%
This is the best case scenario for Obama and would surely yield him the nomination even though he falls short on pledged delegates. It breaks down like this, using these reasonable estimates from wikipedia as starting points:
Obama:
Current pledged + superdels. 1225
Estimated gain in pledged: 645
Total: 1870
# to reach nomination: 154
Clinton:
Current pledged + superdels. 1201
Estimated gain in pledged: 430
Total: 1631
# to reach nomination: 393
Clearly, in this scenario, the advantage in pledged delegates would probably give Obama the edge on fence sitting supers and he would get the nod.
Scenario II: Obama wins all but OH,TX,PA by 60%; Clinton wins those three by 55%
In this case, it gets fuzzy.
Obama:
Current pledged + superdels. 1225
Estimated gain in pledged: 571
Total: 1796
# to reach nomination: 228
Clinton:
Current pledged + superdels. 1201
Estimated gain in pledged: 504
Total: 1705
# to reach nomination: 319
The 91 delegate margin here is probably not convincing enough to push the superdelegates as strongly, and it looks like a coin toss.
Scenario III: Obama wins all but OH,TX,PA by 60%; Clinton wins those three by 60%
This is Clinton's best case, but it does not change Scenario II significantly.
Obama:
Current pledged + superdels. 1225
Estimated gain in pledged: 547
Total: 1772
# to reach nomination: 228
Clinton:
Current pledged + superdels. 1201
Estimated gain in pledged: 528
Total: 1729
# to reach nomination: 295
Scenario IV: Obama wins all but TX,PA by 60%; Clinton wins those two by 60%
This is not much of an improvement above scenario II for Obama.
Obama:
Current pledged + superdels. 1225
Estimated gain in pledged: 575
Total: 1800
# to reach nomination: 224
Clinton:
Current pledged + superdels. 1201
Estimated gain in pledged: 606
Total: 1701
# to reach nomination: 323
Scenario V: Obama wins all but TX by 60%; Clinton wins TX by 60%
This is close to Obama's best case (I); clearly if we switch
TX to Ohio or Pennsylvania it gets better for Obama and worse for Clinton.
Obama:
Current pledged + superdels. 1225
Estimated gain in pledged: 606
Total: 1831
# to reach nomination: 193
Clinton:
Current pledged + superdels. 1201
Estimated gain in pledged: 469
Total: 1670
# to reach nomination: 354