Democratic Ground Hog Day--Eight More Weeks (Or Six More Months) Of Battling?

Hat tip to one of our anonymous commenters, who called yesterday Democrats' Ground Hog Day, meaning they have at least eight more weeks of battling for the nomination thanks to Hillary's comeback in Texas and Ohio. More likely, it's six more months.

Here's where we are: Sen. Clinton had to win Texas and Ohio to stay credible, and she did. But in the Democratic way of allocating delegates proportionally, she didn't gain much ground--depending on whose doing the counting, she narrowed the gap by maybe 15-20 delegates. Of course, clinching those key wins last night staunches the flow of superdelegates to Obama, and may even bring a few back home.

What's crystal clear is this: neither Clinton nor Obama can win the nomination--nor even come close--on pledged delegates alone. Indeed, neither can win it with the remaining pledged delegates even if you include their superdelegates. Here's the math--bear in mind that the delegate totals vary depending on your source (ours is realclearpolitics.com).

According to RCP, Obama has 1546 delegates (1344 pledged) to Clinton's 1449 (1208 pledged).

The remaining primaries/caucuses have 611 pledged delegates, and it takes 2025 to win. So Obama would have to take 479 out of 611 pledged delegates (78%) to win it, while Clinton would need 576 out of 611 (94%!) to win it. With the Democratic Party's proportional allocation rules, neither will come close to that, even if they sweep the rest of the contests.

[The candidates actually need slightly fewer delegates than we've set forth above because about 67 pledged delegates from prior contests--48 are from Texas--haven't yet been assigned. Still, you get the picture in terms of the math.]

In any event, neither candidate is going to sweep the rest of the races. If anything, last night's contests showed pretty clearly that where the demographics favor Hillary, she'll win; where they favor Obama, he'll win.

With that in mind, we'd expect Obama to take the next two contests--the Wyoming caucus on Saturday and the Mississippi primary on Tuesday. After that, it's a long wait to Pennsylvania, where Hillary should be favored, especially after the result in Ohio. After that, give Obama the edge in Guam, Indiana, North Carolina, Oregon, Montana and South Dakota; give Clinton the advantage in Kentucky, West Virginia and Puerto Rico.

All that, of course, depends on no one having a major stumble or gaffe between now and June.

So, when the last contest--Puerto Rico--is completed on June 7 (assuming, for the moment, no re-vote in Florida and Michigan), the margin is likely to be about the same as it is now--Obama leading in pleadged delegates, but still well below the magic number of 2025, and Clinton likely to lead in superdelegates, but behind Obama.

Unfortunately, there's no clear path to victory for either Senator that doesn't include a deadlocked convention, unless a sufficient number of superdelegates fall to Obama to put him over the top. The potential for floor fights over Florida and Michigan delegates, and maybe some others, looms large.

This is not a happy scenario for Democrats.