632-626 was the “pledged delegate” count between Hillary and Obama which I woke up to this morning, according to CNN. (Throwing in the superdelegates, CNN has the tally as the still-close Hillary 825, Obama 732)
Wow.
I guess I need to add a few more primaries to my calendar. Many of us armchair election-watchers quietly expected one candidate to come out of Super Duper Fat Tuesday with enough of a lead to be able to claim solid front-runner status….but that’s not the case. The Dems’ race could very likely come down to the superdelegates and the squabble over the exclusion of Michigan’s and Florida’s delegates.
Meanwhile, over on the GOP side, CNN has the delegate count as McCain 615, Romney 268, Huckabee 169, Ron Paul 16. (A count that is at least a little inaccurate, because it doesn’t reflect the Huckabee-Paul deal in West Virginia which netted Paul 3 additional delegates.)
I realize that McCain hasn’t yet hit the magic number of 1,191 delegates, but can we just go ahead and put a fork in the Romney and Paul GOP campaigns, and call them done? Romney’s attempt to buy the nomination failed spectacularly in the south, and the revolution never materialized. (Dr. Paul had a good night in Montana, and hit double digits in Minnesota as well…but the expectations that he could win Alaska didn’t pan out.)