Obama's Counter: Superdelegates

Barack Obama's morning-after, might not be as gloomy as some would think . According to Marc Ambinder, he's set to unveil a slew of newly-minted superdelegate endorsements today (and no, John Mellencamp doesn't count). One of those, Oklahoma's Governor, Brad Henry, had previously said he'd wait until the convention to decide.

Make no mistake about it, Hillary Clinton notched a solid win in Pennsylvania. She won the popular vote of that state by roughly 200,000, and now trails Obama in that category by only half a million or so (excluding some caucus states, Michigan and Florida). So why are more superdelegates continuing to break for Illinois Senator? The answer is math.

As foretold in an earlier post, the delegate picture remains less of a bright spot for Clinton, despite her victory in Pa. CBS estimates that Clinton picked up a net of 9 delegates, and now trails Obama by 126 overall, and that's with superdelegates factored in. Without the fickle supers, RCP has Obama up 151 pledged delegates.

We've got 8 states yet to go, plus Guam and Puerto Rico, with a total of 408 pledged delegates to be awarded. 4 of the contests-Guam, Oregon, Kentucky, and South Dakota-are caucuses, a format in which Obama has dominated. The biggest remaining prize is North Carolina, where Obama looks to have a strong lead in the polls as well as the support from nearly all of the state's political machinery.

Given that Clinton's impressive 9-point win resulted in a pick up of just 13 delegates, it's not hard to see why, looking at what remains of this campaign, some supers have concluded that her resistance is futile.