Obama On The Brink

By this time next week, Senator Barack Obama will have wrapped up the Democratic presidential nomination.

At present, Obama is less than 50 delegates shy of the 2025 he needs for a majority excluding any Michigan or Florida delegates. [According to Democratic Convention Watch--usually reliable--he needs 44 more as of this morning.]

Obama should reach that number by Tuesday night, after the last primaries are done in Montana and South Dakota. CCPS Blog, which has a good track record of forecasting delegates, projects that Obama will pick up an additional 41 pledged delegates between the Puerto Rico primary on Saturday, and the Montana/South Dakota primaries Tuesday. Surely, Obama will also get a handful of superdelegate endorsements in the meantime.

In any event, Politics 1 reports that the Obama campaign is stockpiling a large number of superdelegate commitments to unveil next week, presumably right after all the primary voting is done, which would put him over the top even with just about any Michigan/Florida resolution.

We've already said that we expect a gracious concession speech from Hillary next week, followed by an equally gracious--and rousing--victory speech by Obama.

For many Democrats, these events can't come soon enough. But not to worry--Obama wrapping up the nomination in June is plenty of time to bring the Democratic Party back together, let Obama get some rest, start the general election fundraising and prepare for the fall election.