Posted by Jed Lewison on Mon Mar 17, 2008 at 7:30 AM Pacific

Nancy Pelosi, Pennsylvania, and the sixty-percent threshold

I'm surprised by how much media coverage there was of Speaker Pelosi's statement that superdelegates should support the winner of the pledged delegate battle. (Pleasantly surprised, mind you, very much so.) David Broder talked about it on Meet the Press and NBC Nightly news even did a little story on it during their broadcast. You gotta' love how the superdelegate thing has really broken through if there are stories about it on the evening news.

Anyway, as I wrote yesterday, Pelosi's comments, combined with Iowa county convention results and the NYT article on superdelegates, show that a consensus is emerging within the Democratic Party: Barack Obama will be our nominee.

Still, there will be -- and should be -- more voting. Probably even in Michigan and Florida. The bottom-line though is that in order to win the nomination, Hillary Clinton will need to win at least sixty percent of the vote in just about every single contest from here on out.

Between you and me, there's no way that going to happen. But she's got every right to try.

The one thing that I hope is that when the Pennsylvania vote on April 22 roles around, the press keeps in mind that Clinton must win at least sixty percent to remain plausibly viable. (The attached chart should help make it clear why.) If she fails to hit that threshold, they need to take that into account in their ongoing coverage of her campaign. I'm not saying that they should stop covering her, but they need to start exercising better judgment when covering her attacks on Obama; otherwise, they will be at that point merely aiding and abetting the McCain campaign -- not to mention boosting Clinton's hopes for another shot in 2012.

Nancy Pelosi, Pennsylvania, and the sixty-percent threshold

I'm surprised by how much media coverage there was of Speaker Pelosi's statement that superdelegates should support the winner of the pledged delegate battle. (Pleasantly surprised, mind you, very much so.) David Broder talked about it on Meet the Press and NBC Nightly news even did a little story on it during their broadcast. You gotta' love how the superdelegate thing has really broken through if there are stories about it on the evening news.

Anyway, as I wrote yesterday, Pelosi's comments, combined with Iowa county convention results and the NYT article on superdelegates, show that a consensus is emerging within the Democratic Party: Barack Obama will be our nominee.

Still, there will be -- and should be -- more voting. Probably even in Michigan and Florida. The bottom-line though is that in order to win the nomination, Hillary Clinton will need to win at least sixty percent of the vote in just about every single contest from here on out.

Between you and me, there's no way that going to happen. But she's got every right to try.

The one thing that I hope is that when the Pennsylvania vote on April 22 roles around, the press keeps in mind that Clinton must win at least sixty percent to remain plausibly viable. (The attached chart should help make it clear why.) If she fails to hit that threshold, they need to take that into account in their ongoing coverage of her campaign. I'm not saying that they should stop covering her, but they need to start exercising better judgment when covering her attacks on Obama; otherwise, they will be at that point merely aiding and abetting the McCain campaign -- not to mention boosting Clinton's hopes for another shot in 2012.