It's all about the pledged delegates.
The Clinton campaign won three states on Tuesday, and has taken full advantage of the bragging rights they've earned, but the real story is the delegates. The Clinton campaign was down by more than 150 delegates, and they're still down by more than 150 delegates. Looking ahead, the rest of the primary calendar consists of Pennsylvania plus nine States That Don't Matter.* Even if the Clinton campaign wins an Ohio-grade win in the Keystone State, that won't make up for all the delegates the Obama campaign will pick up in the States That Don't Matter. When the primary season is over, the Obama campaign will still have anywhere from 200 to 300 more delegates than the Clinton campaign.
For all the talk about the superdelegates, it's the pledged delegates (and the voters they represent) that tell the real story. All those voters represent political power, and the mass of pledged delegates exerts its own political gravity. When the voting is done, the superdelegates are going to find themselves drawn into the orbits of the pledged delegates like meteors drawn into the gravity well of a large planet. When that happens, the greater mass of pledged delegates that make up Planet Obama will exert the greater political gravity, and the majority of the superdelegates will find themselves drawn into its orbit. As a result, by the time the party meets in Denver, Planet Obama will already have gained a critical mass of superdelegates, and the nomination will follow.
So don't worry about talk of the superdelegates overturning the results of the primaries. They will be unable to resist the superior gravity of Planet Obama.
*A State That Doesn't Matter is defined as any "small" state where Obama's superior ground game results in a landslide victory.
Comments are closed for this post.