Beltway Snark

This is so much fun. Politico has an article chronicling the debate between Clinton and Obama as to what the “magic number”  for claiming victory is. The Obama camp and the DNC are saying that 2,025 is the number of delegates needed to win. That number completely excludes Florida and Michigan. That would lead you to believe that the Obama camp would be going for 2,025 delegates before they claimed delegate victory. You would be wrong.

Obama will not reach the 2,025 magic number on May 20. Rather, on that date he is all but certain to hit a different threshold—1,627 pledged delegates, which would constitute a winning majority among the 3,253 total pledged delegates if Florida and Michigan are not included.

“On May 20 we’re going to declare victory,” said an Obama senior advisorwho asked that his name be withheld to speak candidly, adding that after those contests they will be “the ones with the most pledged delegates and the most popular votes.”

Funny how that number just keep getting lower and lower for the Obama camp. The Clinton camp is arguing that that 1,627 number is invalid because it completely excludes Florida and Michigan.

But the Clinton campaign’s insistence on counting Florida and Michigan would alter not only the overall delegate math, but the pledged delegate math as well. Because if the two states are included in the count, the total number of pledged delegates would rise from 3,253 to 3,566—which means the magic number for a majority rises to 1,784, not 1,627 as the Obama campaign asserts.

By hewing to that interpretation, the Clinton campaign would thus be able to raise doubts about a May 20 declaration of victory by Obama.

The DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee, the ones in charge of sorting out this whole Florida/Michagan mess, doesn’t meet until May 31st. That means between May 20th and May 31st it will be complete bedlam in the Democratic Party. Get your popcorn ready.