Obama is winning

I have made this point before with regard to delegates, states, and the popular vote.  But Kos delves more deeply into the numbers and finds that by every conceivable measure, Barack Obama is winning the race for the Democratic nomination.

 

1.) Pledged Delegates: (Using AP's numbers, with Obama's count in parenthesis)

Obama: 1,390 (1,411)
Clinton: 1,248 (1,250)

2.) Popular vote: I updated this post with results from Mississippi. I took out the Texas caucuses just to give this the best pro-Clinton spin possible, though I still think the caucuses are a separate contest and need to be accounted for. (Obama ended up winning Mississippi by over 100,000 votes.)

Obama: 13,614,204
Clinton: 12,801,153

3.) Primaries Won: There are 37 total primary contests. All Obama has to do is win three more and he notches the lead in these contests. He can do that easily with just three out of Montana, South Dakota, Oregon, Indiana, and North Carolina.

Obama: 16
Clinton: 12

4.) Caucuses Won

Obama: 14
Clinton: 3

5.) Overall contests Won: It's a 2-1 Obama advantage (includes territories and Democrats Abroad).

Obama: 30
Clinton: 15

6.) Red and Blue States Won (including DC, not including territories or Democrats Abroad):

Obama: 16 Red, 11 Blue
Clinton: 8 Red, 6 Blue

8.) Money Raised (through February)

Obama: $168 million
Clinton: $140 million

The seething, sweaty rhetorical gyrations of Mark Penn cannot change the fact that his candidate is losing.  The  only thing Clinton can hope to do is  convince a supermajority of superdelegates to overturn the will of Democratic primary voters and present the nomination to her as a gift.  The very idea suggests that Clinton and her campaign staff have come untethered from reality. 

Her inability to beat Obama at the ballot box means the only way Clinton can make the case for a superdelegate coup is to kneecap him with the smears she has unleashed during the kitchen-sink phase of her campaign.  And she is certainly doing her best - or her worst, depending on how you think of these things.

But here's the problem with throwing everything, including the kitchen sink, at your opponent.  If you fail to knock him out after all that, you have a problem.  And Obama is still standing. I can't think of a reason why superdelegates would hand her a "gimme" considering this stark reality. 

With her frantic, increasingly desperate attempts to extract a win from a losing campaign, Hillary Clinton is only emphasizing the fact that she has not earned, and does not deserve the honor of  being Democratic Party's standard bearer in the 2008 presidential race.