Crunch

Hillary picked up 193 delegates on March 4th, and with 5 from Wyoming, has a pledged total of 1234; she seems to have 242 SuperDelegates!, making her SuperDooper total 1476 (coincidentally, the year she was born). Obama picked up 178 delegates on the 4th, and with Wyoming's 7 now has 1377 popular delegates; with his 210 SuperDelegates! he has about 1587. I say about because there is some conflict in the reporting, and also because one of my staff might possibly have made an adding mistake. To clinch the nomination, somebody needs 2025.

The Dems still have events in Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Guam, Indiana, North Carolina, West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon, Montana, South Dakota and Puerto Rico. These total up to 612 delegates. Let's round. Obama needs about 440 more. Hillary needs about 550. If current trends hold, no one wins. (But we knew that.) You realize what that means.

A brokered convention.

Here's why Hillary wins. The clintons know where the bodies are buried. They didn't spend 8 years in Washington for nothing. And everyone knows they have the hardest hardballs around. Even those SuperDelegates! who are already pledged for Obama can switch over. What bribe, what threat, what seduction would the clintons not use to achieve their ends? They are the very definition of backroom operatives. Suddenly John Edwards with his delegates seems important.

Add that fact to the clinton's genius for dirty tricks -- which hasn't been working so far because the MSM was Obama's waterboy -- and we can expect a Change indeed. Hillary knew about the Rezko connection long ago, and brought it up ineptly. Now it's gaining traction. Who could possibly be so naive as to think that in the vast sewer of Illinois politics, Obama hasn't gotten some stink on his shoes? No, it's not really fair, and it's not even really substantive. Perhaps. But we've seen how stupid and petty this process is.

Obama's minister, Jeremiah Wright, is just a howling black racist preacherman, from what I can tell, who loves Farrakhan and hates America. So what. Obama has the right to listen to whomever he wants and go to whatever place of worship he chooses. Private lawful and ethical behavior is private. It's matters of public policy that count from a politician.

That's the sort of thing I mean. Purity tests. We are after all talking about politics. Compromise and purity don't really go together. And to imagine that Obama is pure in the first place is just silly. No one is pure. No one famous. The trick about growing up is to learn this sort of fact, without letting it ruin us. That's what hope is.


J