Sorry, didn’t mean to be snarky, but you really didn’t do worst case. You just did a really bad case. Splitting Montana and South Dakota, for instance. Might as well just give all the remaining delegates to her; it really would be no less realistic.
RT, a question: I understand the reasoning behind trusting DemConWatch the way you do, what with links to stories and all, but have they all been really verified and counted up? I ask because the NY Times reported today that Obama has passed Clinton in supers, and I thought they were famous for their accuracy and stuff.
What, without links for us all to judge for ourselves the nature of her work? 
Point taken. In my cursory search, I couldn’t find any numbers for MT and SD. Even though I have no doubt they’ll swing Obama, I figured a split would be the most charitable approach, potentially resulting from the “momentum effect” of (big) Clinton wins in WV and KY. Lack of numbers was slightly contrary to what I found for PR, for which it was theorized that there’s a possibility that the vote will go as a single, monolithic block. Again, I doubt it. I also ignored the superdelegate trend towards Obama, although I can’t see that waning.
And still, happily, in my “plausible worst-case scenario”, a toss-up results. It does, however, highlight the potential impact of not penalizing MI and FL, purely in terms of delegate count. Not to mention PR’s potential impact (whoodathunkit?).
I don’t think the worst-case scenario above even qualifies as barely plausible. The biggest weakness is MI. Seating MI as-is is remote enough, but I don’t think that even the Clinton campaign is proposing not seating the uncommitted delegates.
I agree that I severely stacked the count against Obama; it would border on being offensively unjust to not give him any MI delegates. I’m not sure what the current Clinton stance on MI is, although I understand that they’re rejecting the “69-59” split. Having tabulated the numbers and put them out there, though, it’s now easy to make the adjustments. It becomes:
Total w/o uncommitted supers for Clinton: 1890+150 = 2040
Total w/o uncommitted supers for Obama: 1987.5+67 = 2054.5
Due to the 32 Edwards delegates, the percentage sum doesn’t equal 100%:
Clinton needs 168.5 (58.2%) of the remaining 289.5 supers
Obama needs 154 (53.2%) of the remaining 289.5 supers
That seems more realistic to me (in the terribly pessimistic sense in which it is intended 
).
Did Michigan actually assign delegates to uncommitted? Are there real people out there in the world pledged to vote for uncommitted, who are functionally superdelegates if they get seated? And would they be morally obligated to vote for anyone but Hillary?
Now, thats a head-scratcher. If they committed to “uncommitted”, then they are free to vote for Hillary if they choose. Catch is, the voter could have voted for Hillary when they had the chance, and chose “uncommitted”. So it seems to be they at least implied a preference by not choosing.
Of course, give Harold Ickes a minute or two, and he can probably give you a rationale for why a vote for “uncommitted” is really a vote for Hillary.
Good questions, that I hope someone can answer. In a cursory search, I couldn’t find too much, but a DemConWatch blog entry provided some info (which may or may not be correct, as it’s marked “unofficial”):
I also looked at the MI Democratic party website for something official, which has a link to this notice:
Of course, no notice from April 19 has been posted.
ETA: I also came across this Detroit News article, which may have more information, but is not in easily digestible form (and I’m not willing to devote the time and effort it to digesting it right now).
Counted up? Most certainly. Verified? Not independently by DCW - they simply assume that if a super is quoted by a legitimate media outlet as stating her/his candidate endorsement, then that suffices in the absence of evidence to the contrary.
They’ve got a comments section, and if readers are aware that a super who’s been cited as being in one or the other candidate’s column has been giving mixed messages, they’ll post something, and the record will be corrected.
They were famous for that once, weren’t they? That was certainly before Judith Miller’s time with the paper.
At any rate, various major news agencies maintain their own lists - confidentially, not subject to public cross-checking, so it’s impossible to be sure how good any particular list is at any given time. And they might get wind of, and tally, some superdelegate commitments shortly before they’re made public. The NYT’s claim has certainly been substantiated by DCW, which, since my post yesterday morning, listed three new Obama superdelegates (in addition to Kristi Cumming, who I mentioned earlier), one new Clinton super, and one C-to-O switch, putting Obama ahead by 3.5 superdelegates.
It’s quite possible that the NYT knew about enough of these commitments on Friday in order to write its story that appeared yesterday.
Oh, okay. It wasn’t showing when I looked, so I probably just didn’t give them time to udpdate. You should be a pundit, RT. Some of the ones I’ve seen (like Bill Kristol and Andrea Mitchell, for instance) look like bumbling idiots next to you. Thanks for all the analysis you do and for keeping us informed.
Thanks, Lib. I’ve gotta say, though, that we could select 25 GD regs who would kick the asses of the NY Times and WaPo op-ed pages, combined. The Broders and Kristols of the world exist in a competition-free bubble, where their opinions get displayed prominently no matter how quickly they’d get shredded here in GD. (And they’d get shredded very quickly indeed.) While we vet each other through a pretty intense diet of debate and criticism: I know I often refrain from saying questionable stuff here simply because I realize, as I start to type it, that I have no idea how I’m going to defend it if questioned. I bet you, and most of the GD regs, do the same - and this makes us all better.
I have no doubt that you’d make better arguments for free markets and minimal regulation than most of the pundits who argue for those positions now. We’ve been debating one another for many years now, and even on those occasions when I’ve felt I had the better of you, believe me, I had to work at it.
Richard Cohen, Maureen Dowd, Michael Gerson, Robert J. Samuelson, and the others who’ve been handed valuable op-ed page real estate are forced to go through no such process, nor do they ever seek out fora where their thoughts will be subject to questioning. (For some reason, it seems to be a faux pas in the pundit business to even name another pundit whose point one is questioning.) The only exception to this I can think of is Joe Klein of Time, who for the past year or so has gotten comments from readers through Time’s group blog, Swampland. (I think it’s improved his game noticeably.) So many of them (most of them, IMHO) get away with writing really dumb shit that would never fly here.
RT and Lib - the main stay of the SDMB simply wouldn’t fly in the MSM. The fighting of ignorance - and we actually don’t want to be inundated with ignorant people trying to slam their views down our gullets. [ok some do anyway]
If SDMB has a news program and it was as accurate as some of us like to be - thereould still be people who don’t belive the results…it one reason I try and stay away from watching the “news”. Very good job to both of you for sharing your areas of expertise and idle thoughts.
Meanwhile CNN states that Clinton still leads in super-D’s by one:
Is my preference for Obama slanting my view of their coverage during the primary season, or is CNN indeed the Clinton News Network, as others have called it?
I was thinking about op-ed/talking head-style commentary on the news, rather than news itself. And while I almost never watch the TV pundits, having an op-ed slot on a major paper is the equivalent of having tenure at a university. The only reason Dopers couldn’t make it in that capacity, since neurotic retards can and do ‘fly’ as op-ed columnists, is that they’d never get hired in the first place.
Damned if I know - I don’t even have cable TV, so I’ve got no opinion on CNN generally.
But on this particular thing, I think they’re in the wrong - if not on the particulars, then in the way they’re dealing with a simple factual issue.
CNN says Obama has 272 superdelegates, and Clinton has 273.
DCW says Obama has 274 supers that they know of, and Clinton has 270.5.
It’s quite possible that CNN knows of some superdelegates that are privately or publicly committed to Clinton that DCW doesn’t know about. And while I don’t approve of their policy of keeping their names to themselves, precisely because I can’t argue with the accuracy of their count, the fact remains that I can’t argue with their count of Clinton superdelegates. They may be right. And to make the case that Clinton really has 274 supers instead of 270.5, they would have to reveal their list in its entirety. I can at least understand their reluctance to do so, even while disagreeing with their decision not to share.
The same can’t be said of their Obama count. Again, they may be right: Obama may have two fewer committed supers than DCW names. But this one’s different in that CNN can certainly specify where DCW is wrong, without broadly tipping its hand. It can point to the news sources that indicate this or that delegate really isn’t committed to Obama, or it can say that this or that delegate has confirmed to CNN that they’re not committed to Obama despite published news accounts, without giving away any further details of its list.
CNN’s failure to do so, IMHO, calls into question the veracity of their count.
Just thought I’d add here that it is reported by the financial times that Obama has 120 superdelegates (unaccounted for, obviously) under his control.
and also…
and finally…
Interesting that this is getting no play in the US media. I wonder why?
Really it honestly makes the most sense. Could someone as involved in politics as a super-delegate seriously not have decided yet? It’s just a question of having the balls to come out and say who you support. What’s really ridiculous to me is why they insist on waiting for everyone to vote. It’s rare that every state gets to vote for the primaries. It’s almost always decided before then. We all know that the super-delegates will decide it, so the remaining primaries are moot anyway.
It’s just very typical of Democrats…Lacking in spine. But anyway, makes sense to me. Obama is trying to let it peter out in a way that is most likely to win him as many Clinton supporters in the end. I imagine he has an understanding with Clinton he will indulge her attempts only because he wants to win her supporters.
What’s really interesting is to notice how the Hillary fans are unraveling. I’ve seen the comments in some areas of Hillary supporters cursing super-delegates now for being stupid.
There’s a really weird logic to the last few Hillary supporters. Most of it seems to be that somehow Obama is inferior. They are afraid that he’ll be either, A) incompetent, or B) unelectable.
We all know the unelectable meme comes from not racism, but anticipation of racism from the rest of the country. A very pessimistic view of the state of the nation if you ask me. The cold, hard calculating politics of the past. And to be honest, if it weren’t such a bad year for Republicans they might have a point, but the Dems aren’t going to get an easier election.
The other meme is that she is somehow more experienced than Obama. I reject the argument that she has any meaningful experience, other than being nearby when important things have happened. But even if you do buy that, how can you say that her campaign has done anything but borne out the opposite? Hillary’s arguments are that she’ll win. But she’s losing now. How can she say that she’s better? She’s never been ahead by any measure at any stage of the race. Florida and Michigan included she’s still behind by 30 delegates. If this election had been properly conducted We might have seen her win Michigan, but you’d have Obama getting enough votes there to have at least 60 or so more pledged delegates.
In politics, you gotta play the game. Obama played the game better. Why should we believe that Hillary will play it better in the general? Playing the superdelegates is part of the game too, but is it really any surprise that they are going for Obama? Not to me. It’s going to be very interesting what Hillary’s argument will be when it’s all said and done. Obama will have his 120 superdelegates.
Regarding Michigan. It’s very interesting what happened there recently. It was currently proposed to give Hillary 69 and Obama 59 delegates from that state. Now I can’t remember where I read this, but essentially there’s something fishy about this. I read somewhere that state that this would never have happened without Granholms support. She is a staunch Clinton ally of course. The person also state that Granholm would never support this if she hadn’t gotten the go-ahead from the Clinton camp. What does that mean? Was there a mis-communication that allowed them to fully flesh-out a deal without Clinton’s knowledge? I doubt it. This is a big deal, and she must be aware of every detail regarding Michigan. Yet Hillary rejected the deal.
As stated earlier, Clinton will only accept Michigan’s delegates in the most unfair way. It never was about the votes, obviously.
But we’ll have to wait for Clinton to slide into obscurity. She’ll get more desperate, and put on a big show on tuesday. But will anyone be watching? The WV blowout will be a pain in Obama’s side but he’d probably be best to ignore it.
You guys worry way too much.
**Obama is going to be the nominee. **
Chill for a few weeks.
I’m not worried at all; all of my commentary since Friday afternoon concerning the primaries has been post-mortem.
I agree: this is a done deal.
Clinton’s welcome to pretend there’s still a race for the nomination. Awww, how cuuuute.
I can sort of see her view on this, tactics-wise.
Firstly, every day in politics is Anything Can Happen Day. (Look it up, punk puppies! And get off my LAN!..) Now, this happy viewpoint is darkened by what appears to be BHO’s uncanny ability to slip punches. They look at the whole Rev Wright fiasco and think “Almost! Next time, fer sure!” Of course, this would have to be a fox pass of galactic proportions, a dead woman/live boy just ain’t gonna get it.
Second, she has a run a pretty good close second, its not like she got clobbered. Just beat.
And thirdly…ah, thirdly…I got nothin’. Nope, that’s all there is. But remember: politics is wierder than a duck on acid, you can’t be sure of shit.