obama's rally yesterday in philly set records. 35,000 attended.
associated press analysis says obama could end up within 100 delegates of winning the nomination (2,025 delegates are needed), which is why hillary appears more desperate:
ap Clinton leads in Pennsylvania polls in advance of Tuesday’s primary there, with 158 convention delegates at stake. A victory is essential to her chances of winning the nomination, but far from sufficient. Instead, a triumph of any magnitude would instantly establish Indiana on May 6 as her next must-win state, particularly since her aides have privately signaled that defeat is likely in North Carolina on the same day.
Overall, Obama’s delegate lead is 1,645-1,507. That masks an even larger advantage among those won in primaries and caucuses. There, his advantage is 1,414-1,250. An additional 566 delegates are at stake in the remaining contests in eight states, Guam and Puerto Rico before the primary season ends on June 3.
If Obama captures 53 percent of them, which is the share he has gained in contests to date, he would close out the primary season with at least 1,945 delegates, only 80 less than the total needed to clinch the nomination. If he and Clinton split the 566 evenly, he would still be within 100 of the number needed.
Clinton needs to win a forbidding 65 percent of the delegates in the remaining primaries to draw even with Obama in pledged delegates. It’s a share she has achieved only once so far, in Arkansas, where her husband was governor for more than a decade.
Given the unyielding delegate math, Clinton has relied for weeks on forbearance from party leaders to sustain her challenge. And they are growing restless, eager for the epic nomination battle to end so Democrats can unify for the fall campaign against John McCain and the Republicans.
obama also has the popular vote lead by 717,086 votes. that's not including the caucuses, where obama has a 213,142 lead over clinton, for an edge of 930,228 votes altogether. (thanks to a reader for that, who sourced CNN). obama: 504,420 clinton: 291,278 other: 795,698
the caucus votes tallied were for 12 states not including texas. i'm not sure if texas caucus votes have been included in any statistics.
what hillary must do to win--one of the best videos yet.
