Team Obamas Take, a Couple Thoughts, and Some Programming Notes

Got an email from Obama Campaign Director David Plouffe entitled "The Math" (which sounds unsettlingly familiar.):

Our projections show the most likely outcome of yesterday's elections will be that Hillary Clinton gained 187 delegates, and we gained 183.

That's a net gain of 4 delegates out of more than 370 delegates available from all the states that voted.

For comparison, that's less than half our net gain of 9 delegates from the District of Columbia alone. It's also less than our net gain of 8 from Nebraska, or 12 from Washington State. And it's considerably less than our net gain of 33 delegates from Georgia.

The task for the Clinton campaign yesterday was clear. In order to have a plausible path to the nomination, they needed to score huge delegate victories and cut into our lead.

They failed.

Which is true as far as it goes. The problem for Obama is that he can't win simply by playing out the string. As we all know by now, neither side can amass enough committed delegates to win. To make up the deficit in superdelegates, Obama has to prove something more.

I agree with the take that Clinton does not suddenly have Momentum. True, but neither does Obama. And while Texas was not a comeback win for Hillary, Ohio most certainly was. The first poll of what could be called the Ohio race -- post-Wisconsin when Ohio the next big race on the horizon -- had Hillary up by 56%. Then she dropped in successive polls as Obama gained. Then the trends reversed again and we ended with Hillary at 54%.

Though perhaps that's not a Hillary comeback so much as an Obama stumble. He closed the gap in both Ohio and Texas, but couldn't close the sale.

I'm still digging out from my blizzard of work, but daylight is seeping through. I'll try to post some more comprehensive thoughts later tonight.