It is not quite as stark as for Huckabee, but the math for Clinton to catch up and win is pretty bad.

How Many Delegates Does HRC Need To Win?
(Marc Ambinder, The Atlantic)

Let’s go to March 4. Let’s assume that Clinton wins Ohio by four points – 52 to 48, netting her roughly 5 extra delegates, and loses Texas 49 to 51, netting Obama three extra delegates, and loses Vermont, netting Obama three extra delegates, and winning Rhode Island by 6 points, netting herself an extra delegate. She ends that day with no additional delegates – she can blame Vermont.

Under the rosiest of scenarios, it’s hard to see her winning more than about 50 percent of the remaining earned delegates, even if she whips Obama in Pennsylvania and earns, say, 16 extra delegates, and drums him in Puerto Rico, where, even if she wins seventy percent of the delegates, she’s still, in essence, playing catch up.

If Clinton wins half of the remaining delegates – about 493 – and loses none – she still trails Obama by a net 50 or so earned delegates.

Now let’s run the scenario with Florida and Michigan’s delegates in play – the best iteration of that scenario, with both pledged and unpledged delegates seated and Clinton’s having earned fully 60% of or more of them. She’ll need at least 52.1% of remaining pledged delegates to surpass Obama.

Playing with the numbers a bit, here’s how she could – in theory – accomplish this.

If Florida and Michigan’s delegations are seated fully to her advantage, and if she wins in Ohio by 65% and wins in Texas by 65%, and all other percentages hold, she can win the nomination.

(via The Daily Dish)

She’s not going to take Ohio and Texas. Maybe not at all. Certainly not by those margins. And the superdelegates will NOT save her if Obama is way ahead on pledged delegates coming into the convention. And unless she comes into the convention already ahead, (or unless Obama is so far ahead it won’t matter) Florida and Michigan will not be seated.

She’s done.

CNN today provides yet more delegate updates. Somebody there must be spending some time on this!

There is a net gain of 4 new delegates today. Luckily, yesterday I printed the CNN page, so I can actually say exactly what this was. It was all superdelegates. Obama gained five new superdelegates. Clinton lost one. Presumably that would be John Lewis switching over to Obama. Net increase in the gap between the two candidates of 6 delegates. Clinton just keeps falling further behind.

We’re now at Obama 51.3%, Clinton 47.7%, Edwards 1.0%.

Obama needs 660 more to win, Clinton needs 757 more.

OK, I screwed up. I only printed out the Democrats figuring if there were changes, it was more likely on that side. But NO, there were major changes on the Republican side today. And since I didn’t print yesterday’s chart, I can’t go identify where the changes came from. I suspect the same things I did yesterday. Romney delegates being redistributed and final results from second stage caucuses and the like. But I can’t actually tell because I don’t have yesterday’s chart. Damn it. Well, I printed today’s chart, but now just watch, nothing will change.

In any case we have a net gain of 44 new delegates listed. Romney LOST seven delegates. Paul gained five delegates, bringing his total to 21 delegates. This is the first addition of delegates Paul has had since February 6th. Huckabee gains eight more delegates, and McCain picks up a full 38.

This leaves us at: McCain 66.4%, Romney 16.4%, Huckabee 15.9%, Paul 1.4%

Huckabee is very very close to overtaking Romney. He must be thrilled.

McCain needs 159 more delegates to reach the magic number of 1191 and have a majority of the delegates and therefore wrap up the nomination. (Absent of course any completely unexpected development that would cause officially committed delegates to change their minds.)

I never followed sports and so was not a fan and did not spend any time listening to or watching his work… but for a brief time around 1995 or so I worked part time at the radio station where he was based and bumped into him a few times and I think I even worked with him once when I produced one of the football games. (Something I only did once or twice.) He was as much a character in person as he was on the air.

Anyway, I know a lot of folks from the ‘Burg have fond memories of Myron cope, so I thought I’d pass this along.

Steelers Announcer Myron Cope Dies
(Alan Robinson, AP on Seattle Times)

Myron Cope, the screechy-voiced announcer whose colorful catch phrases and twirling Terrible Towel became symbols of the Pittsburgh Steelers during an unrivaled 35 seasons in the broadcast booth, has died. He was 79.

…

Cope’s tenure from 1970-2004 as the color analyst on the Steelers’ radio network is the longest in NFL history for a broadcaster with a single team and led to his induction into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2005.

I just finished watching it on a bit of a delay… Obama just kept his cool the whole time. Clinton kept trying to get in punches, but none of them seemed to take hold, and certainly none got under his skin and got him to respond hottly.

Clinton did nothing to help herself here. I stand by my earlier prediction that she will lose Texas… probably by a decent margin, and that she will possibly lose Ohio as well… but even if she pulls out a win in Ohio, it won’t be enough. And I don’t think she’ll try to push forward further if that happens. If she does she’ll start looking like Huckabee (even though the margins won’t be nearly that large) and only further damage her Senate career. She will know it is time to cut her losses.

She will drop out within 48 hours of the polls closing Tuesday. Probably on March 5th.

She can go on to be the Senate Majority Leader. That will be a fine spot for her.