I need a little help with numbers...

[lapfog_1]

I confess that I stayed up all night last night, and it's late again tonight. So late the my eyes keeping blinking.

Anyway, I am curious about a number...

We all know about the "magic" number of delegates either Obama or Hillary need to win to clinch the nomination in the first ballot. I.e the raw number of delegates needed to win minus the number of pledged delegates each has.

The number I'm interested in is what I'm going to call the imaginary number. Imagine if ALL super delegates are added to your total for the first ballot, plus all of the pledged deletes you have so far. What is the number of pledged delegates you need in addition to secure the nomination?

Then I'd like to know what the imaginary number is for each candidate... and the ratio of that number to the number of delegates left (1/5th or 1/4th or whatever).

It's a true "imagine if" scenario... but I just have this feeling that the Gang of Five (Gore, Pelosi, Reid, Edwards, and I can't remember the fifth!) might just have a pre-convention meeting in the next few weeks with all of the super delegates and put it to them that they need to act as a body to allow the first candidate comfortably into negative imaginary numbers to win by telling the trailing candidate to close up shop. And they CAN enforce this within all the rules, simply by pledging to act in mass (or nearly so).

A floor fight about FL and MI and supers and possible pledged delegate poaching and stuff just doesn't sound very good.

[I Vote In Pittsburgh]

1. Here you go

Using CNN's pledged delegate tally,
The imaginary number for Obama is 90. The ratio of this to the number of delegates left is 9/100.
The imaginary number for Hillary is 225. The ratio of this to the number of delegates left is about 23/100.

Note that both candidates can (and will) reach this imaginary number.

[lapfog_1]

5. 90.... really?

That's just amazing. First one to, say, -20 (110 more for Obama, 245 for Hillary) wins.
Especially if the ratios are maintained at the current level.

That would be my proposal to the Gang of Five.

Otherwise, I'm pretty sure Obama goes to Denver with something like a 200 delegate lead in pledged, and a 80 delegate lead with the Super Delegates thrown in (given that they continue to break about what they have been).

And then we have the fight over MI and FL and all the other shit. And the Credentials committee (it was announced today) will be chaired by three people, all previous Clinton appointees. That committee can decide if MI or FL are seated. Membership in that committee (of the pledged delegates) has not been announced, but since it will be proportional to the convention pledged delegates, but only has something like 168 members, one can imagine a 10 to 20 voting margin for Obama on the committee. And that might be narrow enough for the Clintons to overturn (either by poaching or by use of supers that are on the committee). After FL and MI, then the pledged + supers become very very close. And we enter a brokered convention... or worse, a deadlock.

That's why I think an intervention is needed before all that happens. I don't know if Gore and the Gang of Five can even get the Supers to all agree to the intervention, but I think they will try (first they will try to convince one candidate or the other to gracefully drop out... which I just don't see happening, even with double digit loses by the Clinton campaign in the last few outings).

Oh well... thanks so much for doing the math. I can hardly see my screen right now.

Bed is calling my name.

[Spider Jerusalem]

2. Based on results thus far and likely outcome of Hawaii?

Plus the likelihood that TX gives Obama a lead in delegates, even without a 'win', and that Ohio breaks close to even? Obama with all the superdelegates would take it on the first ballot. (RCP has current PLEDGED delegate totals for Obama at 1142 vs 1026 for Clinton; I'm using Obama winning 13 out of 20 delegates in Hawaii, 100 out of 193 in TX, and 60 out of 141 in OH as a basis for calculation; these are of course early estimates, but with those numbers in just those states, Obama would be at 1315 vs 1187 for Clinton. A fifty-fifty split in ALL remaining additional delegates, added to the numbers I just gave, looks like this: 1615 Obama, 1487 Clinton (+/- 5 or so either side). A fifty-fifty split is not a likely scenario, though.

[mathewsleep]

4. transmetropolitan rocks.

[CK_John]

3. What makes you think the SD are any different than DU? If you want a real math problem, you can

lower the the win number(2025), because SD's are not replaced, by getting x num of SD to resign just before the convention.

[lapfog_1]

6. Rumor is that many SDs will suddenly find themselves "busy"

or defrosting the freezer or something come convention time. They don't what to be forced to choose (and suppose they choose poorly!).

OTOH, I think it would be great (from an historical perspective) to attend this convention if there is going to be a floor fight over any of the issues... and likely damage to the party too (which is why this needs to be avoided ahead of time).