Right now I’m watching some C-Span coverage of a rally from last Thursday. Michelle Obama talking to a large crowd somewhere in Pennsylvania. It is probably the first time I’ve watched her in a really extended setting… a full length speech rather than just a few minutes here or there, usually when introducing her husband. I just have to say, she is pretty damn impressive in her own right.

So when does she start her run for Senate? If Barack becomes President, I understand there will be a vacancy in Illinois. :-)

Just watched it over lunch. It was detailed. It was thoughtful. It was nuanced. He explained himself without apologizing. He condemned Wright’s controversial statements while expressing respect for the man in other contexts. He explained how things were more complex than the caricatures you get through quick sound bites and video clips. He talked about the origins of the sort of feelings that Wright expressed and how they fit into a larger context which he understands, but does not agree with. Etc.

Bottom line, it will only convince the people who are already convinced. For example, it all made sense to me. But people will still have the impressions of Obama that they had yesterday. This will likely change very few people’s minds. Perhaps there will be a few people who took the time to watch the whole thing who were concerned before who will be swayed by this. But it will be a small number. Once this is digested into clips and soundbites that will be repeated, people will only pay attention to the bits that reinforce what they thought anyway. And there is plenty here for both sides. Only if you watch all (or most) of it do you get the balance Obama is trying to achieve. And that is complicated, so it won’t play well.

The one thing Obama could hope is that this satisfies the PRESS. That they will think that after this there is no more to say about the issue, and so therefore they will move on, and ignore those who try to keep the issue alive by saying “this was already addressed”. If so, then Obama will leave this damaged, but not still bleeding. But it will not undo the (I think unjustified) damage of the last week.

Anyway, here is the YouTube of the speech for those who want to watch it. (Link originally via Irish Trojan.)

Forget what Obama is saying. It really doesn’t matter. Click through and watch the dude behind him on the right. Hey dude! You’re on YouTube!

(via Andrew Sullivan)

So as I write this, we finally have results (full results) from the Texas Caucuses and we have partial results (28 delegates out of 33) for yesterday’s primary in Mississippi. Net result of these changes… Clinton picks up 40 more delegates, Obama picks up 55.

So, lets update our various stats, shall we?

Obama expands his lead from 115 delegates to 130.

There are 936 delegates left unaccounted for (including both super and pledged). To win Clinton needs to get 546 of them (58.3%). To win Obama needs 416 of them (44.4%).

In percentage terms Obama now has 51.7% of the delegates, which is a new all time high for him. Clinton is down to 47.5% of the delegates. This is almost exactly where she was on March 4th (actually 47.49% today compared to 47.47% on March 4th). That March 4th number was her all time low since this contest began.

The percentage gap between Obama and Clinton is now 4.2% and is the largest percentage lead Obama has had to date.

I’ll be honest, I watched almost none of tonight’s media coverage of the Mississippi results, so I’m not sure how things were played out in the spin zone today.

But what is the real story?

Obama completely obliterated the slight gains Clinton made last week. Clinton is now in the weakest position she has been since things kicked off in Iowa. In order to win she now has to keep a pace of winning 58.3% of the delegates. This is a higher percentage of the delegates than she has EVER had, even in the early days of the race where she maxed out at just about 56% because she had a ton of superdelegates when very few pledged delegates had been allocated yet.

If you normalize the Pennsylvania pollster.com trend numbers today (so they add up to 100%) you get that her lead is currently 57% to 43%. So at the moment she is close to the ratio she needs in PA. Very close. Of course, Obama has been gaining on her. But who knows if he will be able to keep that up and close that gap. Clinton needs to actually INCREASE her current lead in PA to be on the pace she needs though.

And of course in North Carolina it is Clinton 45% to Obama 55%. And the various states left look like some will go one way and some the other.

For the sake of argument, lets just guestimate for a moment. Lets say Clinton and Obama split the rest of the pledged delegates 50/50. Of the 936 delegates left outstanding right now 585 are pledged and 351 are super. With the 50/50 split (leaving out one delegate to make it even) we’d end up with Clinton at 1770 and Obama at 1900. Clinton would then need 254 out of the 351 superdelegates… 72% of them… in order to take the win.

Of course this is with a 50/50 split of the remaining pledged delegates. If Clinton manages better than that because Obama gets no momentum out of Wyoming and Mississippi but she does get momentum out of Pennsylvania, then it won’t be quite as difficult and that 72% will be a little smaller. (If Obama beats 50% then of course Clinton would have to get an even higher percentage.) It also assumes no more superdelegates declare a preference between now and the convention.

If Obama was ahead by that 1900 to 1770 sort of margin coming into the convention would 72% of the remaining superdelegates decide to vote for Clinton anyway?

Normally I’d say there is no way at all that could happen.

But I shall not be underestimating the Clintons again.

We’ll just have to wait and see how this plays out.

Oh yeah, McCain picks up some more delegates, but nobody cares.

So, CNN dumped a bunch of delegate updates today. There were some new superdelegates who declared preferences recently and are now counted. But CNN also updated the delegate breakdowns in California, DC, Georgia, Maryland, Maine, Nevada, Ohio, Vermont and Wyoming, presumably representing finalization of the results in those states. Between all of that, today Obama picked up 26 delegates and Clinton picked up 10.

So, one might ask, where does that put us for the results of the previous seven days? (That is, since right before Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas and Vermont voted.)

One week ago Obama had a 109 delegate lead over Clinton.

Today Obama has a 115 delegate lead over Clinton.

One week ago Clinton would have needed to win 54.9% of all remaining delegates to win.

Today Clinton needs to win 56.8% of all remaining delegates to win.

In the last week, Clinton gained 169 delegates. Obama gained 175 delegates.

And, by the way, this still does not include the results of the Texas Caucuses, which are going to be a net gain for Obama.

OK, there is one place where Hillary came out ahead. In percentage terms one week ago the gap between the percent of delegates allocated was 4.1%. It is now 3.8%. So in percentage terms she narrowed the gap slightly.

But because the number of delegates left is less than it was a week ago, despite narrowing that gap somewhat, because she wasn’t narrowing the gap at a pace that would be on track to actually take the lead and win, she now has a HARDER road to the nomination now than she did a week ago.

Now, I will admit, 56.8% of all remaining delegates is a big number, but it is not 70% or 80%. It is within the realm of political possibility, although it obviously represents doing MUCH better than she has so far (she has won 47.7% of all the delegates so far).

Now, these are percentages of ALL remaining delegates, both pledged and super. But I think it is still valid to look at it this way.

In any case, yes, it is “the math” and yes, nobody wants to hear about the math. It is just too damn complicated. Boo Hoo. People want to hear about wins and losses!!! But wins and losses of states DO NOT MATTER in this system. Delegates matter. And the math matters.

The way the coverage has gone this week is absolutely non-sensical. Clinton resurgence! Woo Woo! At the BEST part of this week, she had very slightly reduced Obama’s lead and was still nowhere near catching him. And as the week progressed and more results came in… and then the Wyoming caucuses… she just gave up what she had gained. One week later, she is WORSE OFF than before she “won” Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island. And never in that time was she in the lead. This race has not been going back and forth. Not since February 13th when Obama first took the lead has the leadership of this race changed hands.

What’s the real story here? Clinton did better in the March 4th elections than she had in quite awhile. But it was still NOT GOOD ENOUGH to be on a pace to catch Obama and win. That spin would be what is really going on. But somehow the “story” in the mainstream media is very different than that. Not because it is in any way true or meaningful, but because a horse race and a battle all the way to the convention is the better story.

Even more so… look at the graph. Look at the whole history since the beginning of January. The Clinton trend, aside from a couple of bumps, has been a steady upward trend. The Obama trend, aside from a couple small bumps, has been a steady upward trend.

Yes, it looks like Hillary has decided to fight this out to the end. Up to the very end. Potentially even trying to change the minds of superdelegates who have already decided. Perhaps even trying to change the minds of pledged delegates.

There are ways for her to win this. But they all involve either changing the minds of delegates already in Obama’s camp, or winning a MUCH higher percentage of delegates (both pledged and super) than she has managed so far.

Tomorrow is Mississippi. Expect Clinton to fall even further behind.

Then, unless Obama manages an upset, she’ll close the gap a bit in Pennsylvania. But, unless the split is much more in her favor than current polls show, it WON’T BE ENOUGH.

But that won’t matter, because the spin out of Pennsylvania will be that Wyoming and Mississippi were small and didn’t matter, and SHE WINS PENNSYLVANIA!!! And nobody will even give a crap that after that she’ll most likely be even further away from winning the nomination, even though she “won”.

Very depressing.