(cross-posted at www.ObamaIsWinning.com)

In 2008, 3,253 delegates will be chosen through caucuses and primaries to represent Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton at the Democratic National Convention.

Once one of the candidates has won a majority of those democratically selected delegates (also known as pledged delegates), the only way his or her opponent could win the nomination is with the support of the 796 unelected, unaccountable superdelegates -- in the process overturning the judgment of the voters.

50% +1 of 3,253 is 1,627. Therefore, with 1,627 pledged delegates, a candidate will win the nomination -- unless the superdelegates step in and reverse the decision of the voters.

Here's where things stand today:

At present, CNN estimates 986 pledged delegates for Obama and 924 for Clinton. (John Edwards also has 26.)

That means there are still 1,317 pledged delegates left to be awarded.

Obama must win at least 48.7% of them to hit his magic number.

Clinton must win 53.4% of the remaining delegates to her magic number. In other words, even if Clinton won 53% of the remaining delegates, she would still fall short of a democratically elected majority.

(The numbers aren't perfect mirrors of each other because John Edwards won 26 delegates.)

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Yesterday, I posted about a new web site that a friend of mine and I put up called ObamaIsWinning.com.

The site is not about declaring victory. It's not about celebration. It's about making sure that if -- and when -- Obama achieves victory, it isn't stolen from his grasps.

The site is dedicated to the idea that voters -- not political insiders -- should choose the Democratic presidential nominee. We deserve to know who's actually ahead, by counting pledged delegates, elected through primaries and caucuses.

It's already taking off, big time -- last I checked, well over 10,000 visits. Here's a post from the site:

Taking notice

My buddy Justin and I worked on this site yesterday and put it up last evening. Already, over 10,000 people have visited and bloggers like Politico.com's Ben Smith and Andrew Sullivan are writing about it.

Pretty cool -- there must be a lot of people out there who want to know who is really winning this nomination contest.

As Ben wrote:

An Obama backer in Nevada put up a site this morning, ObamaIsWinning.com, making a case that seems to be gaining acceptance: that the more important count is the count of pledged delegates.

One reason this view is gaining strength: There's not really anybody, outside Clinton's campaign, making the contrary argument.

Maybe the mainstream media will catch up and stop reporting superdelegates? According to these numbers from TPM, the only major news organization reporting the true leader of the democratic part of the Democratic Party's primary process is NBC.

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Here's another post from the site that I'd like to share:

Is the Clinton campaign trying to Orwell-up the Supers?

Greg Sargent (via Ben Smith) writes:

In a sign that the spin war over the significance of super-delegates is underway in earnest, Harold Ickes told assorted Hillary supporters on a private conference call yesterday that the campaign wants them to start referring to super-delegates as "automatic delegates," according to someone on the call.

The person I spoke to paraphrases Ickes, who is spearheading Hillary's super-delegate hunt, this way: "We're no longer using the phrase super delegates. It creates a wrong impression. They're called automatic delegates. Because that's what they are."

This is good news and bad news. The good news is that at least implicitly, Clinton's organization is recognizing they are wrong on the substance. The bad news is that they are trying to confuse the issue by changing vocabulary, a sign that they will be pressing ahead with an undemocratic, superdelegate-based victory strategy -- even though it's the wrong thing to do.

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Obama won the first contest in Iowa and as the calendar winds down, he has led wire-to-wire: from start to finish.

Will he be able to sustain the lead? No one can say for sure.

But one thing is clear right now: Barack Obama is winning.