(cross-posted on request of nocore from MyDD)
Okay, a little envelope math.
Pledged delegates: 3251
Superdelegates: 793
Total delegates: 4047
Total needed to be the nominee: 2024
Obama's pledged total: 1414
Clinton's pledged total: 1243
(numbers taken from CNN)
All that is straightforward, we know all that. But the significant thing here is that the superdelegates who are remaining neutral are looking for a good reason to endorse one candidate over another; they don't want to risk their own political careers by going against the leader as assigned by the people. We all know how Democrats feel about that.
Right now it does look like Obama is the leader, but let's look at this from a superdelegate's point of view: Clinton has some strong arguments, and some dire warnings about Obama. Further, nobody wants to anger the Clintons, who are two of the most powerful people in politics today, and gave many of them their jobs.
What's more, many superdelegates don't believe in the concept of, well, themselves; the entire concept, like caucuses and smoke-filled rooms, seems un-democratic.
Therefore, I believe that the number that nobody's really talking about is 1628, which is the number of pledged delegates necessary to take the majority of the delegates assigned only by the voters via the rules emplaced by the DNC and the states. Once either Clinton or Obama reaches that threshold, it will only take 396 more delegates, super or otherwise, to reach the magic number. With the number of outstanding superdelegates, that number can be reached very easily: 184 for Obama and 153 for Clinton out of the currently unaffiliated 338.
What does this mean for each candidate?
Obama will need 214 more pledged delegates.
Clinton will need 385 more pledged delegates.
When will this happen?
There are 158 delegates at stake in Pennsylvania on 4/22.
There are 4 delegates at stake in Guam on 5/3.
There are 115 delegates at stake in North Carolina and 72 delegates at stake in Indiana on 5/6.
At this point, Obama may have reached 1628, if he's garnered 61% of the total delegates from all four of these contests. Chances are, unless Clinton's campaign completely melts down due to lack of funds or another issue, he won't get this many quite yet. Clinton cannot win at this point, even if she won all the delegates.
Moving on:
There are 28 delegates at stake in West Virginia on 5/13.
There are 52 delegates at stake in Oregon and 51 delegates at stake in Kentucky on 5/20.
At this point, the only way for Clinton to have won the most pledged delegates is for her to have won 80% of all preceeding states since April 22. Conversely, Obama, after the 5/20 contests, only needs to have won 44% of the delegates.
Based on historical precident, there is very little chance that Obama will not get more than 44% of the pledged delegates between April 22 and May 20; he's currently polling at about 43% in Pennsylvania, one of his hardest states, with weeks yet to campaign. For him to fail so drastically would be an extreme shift in all trends, and would almost have to necessesitate a 1988 Gary Hart-level scandal.
I believe that, unless something happens before, this contest will be decided by 5/20. After Oregon and Kentucky, if Obama hasn't garnered enough pledged delegates to reach the magic number minus supers, it will essentially be a vote of no confidence in Obama, and Clinton will likely be the nominee. If Obama does garner the needed delegates, the superdelegates will get jittery about the Republicans getting a free ride and throw their weight behind Obama just to give him more time to heal the party and get everyone ready for the big showdown in the fall.
Howard Dean said recently that he needed three months to get the majority of his supporters behind John Kerry in 2004, and that seems like a good starting estimate, though we all know that the disappointment and resentment is pretty deep in some segments of both Obama and Clinton's supporters. Three months to the convention, and then it's off to the races in the general, by which point, hopefully we've got a powerful bloc of Democrats, independants, and disaffected Republicans behind our nominee.