This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter). Posts here are rare these days. For current stuff, follow me on Mastodon

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Even the Pledged

Pr. George’s Executive Switches To Obama
(Rosalind S. Helderman, Washington Post)

“I cannot in good conscience go to the convention and not support Barack,” Johnson said in an interview. “She ran a great campaign, but she fell short of the line.”

Unlike superdelegates, who are free to endorse either candidate, Johnson is one of 28 pledged delegates who have agreed to represent the 36 percent of Maryland Democrats who voted for Clinton on Feb. 12.

(via 2008 Democratic Convention Watch)

The Democratic Convention Watch article has some additional analysis on how Clinton ended up with a faithless pledged delegate. (It looks like thier screening process was a bit flawed, he had actually declared for Obama originally, then changed his mind to Clinton, and is now changing back… the campaigns normally pick their pledged delegates based on unwavering solid loyalty and commitment. Oops.)

Four More Supers

There were four new superdelegates added to the declared list today, and they were all for Obama.

Updated stats:

The new delegate count is: Obama 1869, Clinton 1697, Edwards 19

In percent terms that is: Obama 52.1%, Clinton 47.3%, Edwards 0.5%

2025 delegates are needed to win.

There are 463 delegates yet to be determined.

Obama needs 156 more delegates to win.

Clinton needs 328 more delegates to win.

In percentage terms, that means:

Obama needs 33.7% of the remaining delegates to win. (It was 41.1% before IN/NC.)

Clinton needs 70.8% of the remaining delegates to win. (It was 62.0% before IN/NC.)

This will almost certainly be the last update before we start getting results from West Virginia. So 70.8% of the delegates is the pace Clinton needs to be on in the West Virginia results to be on pace to win. Given recent polls, she may actually get those sorts of margins. She’s at right about that sort of lead it seems. So this might happen… at least for West Virginia. Given the rest of the calendar, including the pace of superdelegate endorsements… I am guessing that the West Virginia results will be the last opportunity she gets to actually improve her position and lower the percentage she needs to win rather than making it higher. Even if she beats this margin in West Virginia, it will only take a few more superdelegates declaring to put Kentucky out of reach. And Kentucky will be on the same day as Oregon, so for that day she won’t have a chance. And that will be that.