You're reaching, John. The momentum is with her now, and I think everyone should stop babbling about BHO's delegate advantage and how undemocratic it will be if the superdelegates decide this, and instead think about how delegates themselves are undemocratic vs. the popular vote. From TPM: Here is where the popular vote stands without MI and FL:

DNC-Sanctioned Contests
Obama 12,920,961
Clinton 12,322,695

So she's 600K shy of him RIGHT NOW. Who's to say what will happen in the next dozen or more primaries? She could beat him on the popular primary vote.

Now look at this (same source):

Including Florida
Obama 13,497,175
Clinton 13,193,681

See? Even easier for her.

Nice try, though. Oh, you forgot to take off your Obama button, btw.

Several weeks ago, Clinton was favored in both Ohio and Texas by about 20 points. In Texas, Obama closed the gap and even won the caucus there.

In Ohio, where a mere month ago he trailed 39% to 56%., he closed the gap to 44% to 55%. (Don't forget, he had 19% in Ohio in December).

What is this about momentum? Clinton won two primaries that she was long predicted to win, but not by the expected margin? In fact, people short term memories need to be checked. Just a week ago, it was conventional knowledge that Clinton not only had to win Texas and Ohio, she had to win both by large margins to stay in the race.

How soon we forget.

The fact that Obama has been able to hold the lead in popular votes despite the fact that his support is strongest in caucus states is nothing short of astonishing.

However, equating primary votes and caucus votes is comparing apples to oranges.

If you really want to get a sense of how popular each is within the party as a whole, you would need to use a uniform national polling of democrats.

Bad news for the Clinton camp here, such polls exist (see Gallup for one example)- and they favor Obama.

slip away from the popular vote argument by referring to public opinion surveys, aka "poll." As in, Obama closed a supposed gap "in the polls." Or polls show him doing better against McCain. Sorry, his delegate lead may count but polls don't.

I posted here last night that this Dickerson story is yet another example of how totally in the tank for Obama so many so-called journalists are -- even AFTER their supposed epiphany last week when SNL shamed them and Hillary's people knocked them. How does Dickerson begin his piece about Hillary winning three of four states including two biggies? With a long lead paragraph that seeks to bury her before he gets to the results.

No one should believe for a moment that guys like Dickerson are going to ease up on Hillary and bear down on Obama -- they are (most of them) pausing briefly before theyu begin beating drums for Obama's line again.

No question that the total popular vote is handily as important and legitimate to persuading those 800 free super delegates as a lead in pledged delegates. And the fact is that Hillary can still catch up and pass Obama in popular votes. But Dickerson devotes his piece essentially to making Obama's argument for him -- namely that the delegate lead amounts somehow to the only expression of "the will of the people" that the supers must follow, disregarding the obvious relevance of the total votes cast. I am at a loss to grasp why, if I'm a member of Congress or a state party chair with a vote given to me to use as I see fit in the best interest of my party, I have to look to who has a delegate lead, however small, and ignore all else.

What's more, what about the "will of the people" of Florida and Michigan, which so far is being tossed aside?

Dickerson is entitled to be in Obam's corner, but can't Slate find anyone to serve as a senior political writer who isn't in the tank for one candidate?

The Gallup poll cited above currently has Margin of Error 2.7% and BHO/HRC only separated by 1%. Aside from all the other flaws we've seen in the polls this season, I wouldn't suggest something so inconclusive as the decision-maker.

Wait a second, there's something out there that polls all interested/willing voters in the Democratic party (some Repubs and Indep too)... it's called the Primary. =)

Notice how Clinton supporters fail to recognize that individual states were deliberately given the mandate to select delegates in their own ways and that they have chosen to go about this differently.

The awarding of delegates is intentionally state-by-state. Given the differences among them, there is intentionally no such thing as a national "popular vote" because caucuses and primaries work differently.

I REPEAT, CAUCUSES AND PRIMARIES WORK DIFFERENTLY.

A decision to try to conflate them is yet another example of exactly what I dislike about the Clintons-

They will do anything to win.

So, now we should seat MI and FL to favor Clinton. We should count caucuses and primaries together to favor Clinton. We should rely on superdelegares to override pledged delegated to favor Clinton. And we should make the decision not on wins but on self-declared electability, guess what, to favor Clinton.

Is there anything else that we can do to change precedent to suit for your candidate? I woundn't want to leave anything out.

Checksnbalances writes:

"Notice how Clinton supporters fail to recognize that individual states were deliberately given the mandate to select delegates in their own ways and that they have chosen to go about this differently.

"The awarding of delegates is intentionally state-by-state. Given the differences among them, there is intentionally no such thing as a national 'popular vote' because caucuses and primaries work differently."

True, so true -- and that goes to the core of why it is that a small lead in pledged delegates is not the one and only way for unpledged delegates to infer the "will of the people" in exercising the power of the votes that were "deliberately given" to them under the same set of rules that allowed state parties to choose primaries, caucuses or combinations of the two. Here are several -- by no means all -- of the problems in interpreting the results by any single standard of what the true will of the Democratic voters is:

-- Caucuses, as opposed to primaries, are significantly less inclusive or democratic, because they make it substantally more difficult for many groups of people to participate -- the sick, elderly or infirm; people who have no choice but to work at the usually evening hours set for caucuses; and people who have to travel, there being no absentee ballots, to name some.

-- In some caucus states -- Iowa, for example -- the caucuses don't actually produce delegates to the convention -- only delegates to county conventions that elect delegates to district conventions that elect delegate to a state convention that actually choose the national convention delegates, who have not yet been chosen! And when they are, they are legally and technically unbound.

-- Some states permit independents, as well as Democrats, to vote in primaries or caucuses; other states permit anyone, even Republicans, to vote in Democratic primaries or caucuses; while other states allow only Democrats to vote for Democratic candidates. So which system is actually more democratic or fair in providing guidance to those super-delegates?

-- And finally, the rules, such as they are, have resulted in NO primary or caucus being permitted to count to two of the biggest states in the union.

The issue here is not whether a "national popular vote" by itself has any role -- of course, it doesn't -- but whether nearly 800 unpledged delegates may feel it's reasonable to look at the popular vote and many other factors, in addition to the pledged delgate count, in making their own decisions.

There simply is nothing inherently more democratic about these delegates endorsing a final lead for primaries and caucuses of, say, Obama 1900 versus Clinton 1850. Nothing.

spruce wrote:

"Just a week ago, it was conventional knowledge that Clinton not only had to win Texas and Ohio, she had to win both by large margins to stay in the race."

That was true then and it is true now. On March 4 Hillary Clinton narrowed Barack Obama's lead by 10 to 12 delegates. That's just not good enough. Her campaign is still on life support.

From the Clinton camp now, the only word you will hear is "momentum". But from the beginning of the race, the momentum has gone back and forth between the two candidates like a ping-pong ball. If it continues to do so, Clinton is doomed.

Obama 08!

winning 3 out of 4 states, and 2 very large ones of the 3, IS momentum, especially considering Obama can't win NY or CA or MASS or NJ, and we're not even counting MICH or FLA. So, if he cannot win PENN, and if he cannot win IN, and he cannot win new primaries in MICH and FLA, and he can't at least hold his own in Oregon and P.R., I say Obama 2016!

Barack Obama didn't lose Texas.

He lost the Texas primary by 4 delegates.

But he'll win the Texas caucus by more than that when the votes are counted.

So Obama, not Clinton, will win Texas.

Obama '08!