Potomac Primary Preview: Why the Delegate Count Doesn't Add Up

Who's ahead? Depends on whose count you look at because they're all over the map.

A lot of media are reporting the Associate Press counts:

Clinton: 1147
Obama 1124

with 2304 remaining. You need 2025 to win the nomination.

Doing the math is harder than you might expect. New York Times doesn't count their chickens until the hatch.

Their count:

Clinton 1045
Obama 922

"Many news organizations include delegate projections in their counts that are based on nonbinding votes for candidate preference, such as the Iowa caucuses. The New York Times counts only delegates that have been officially selected and are bound by their preferences."

Today's Potomac primary looks good for Obama. Virginia's a close call, but he could well win all three on top of winning for states and the Virgin Island this weekend.

Hawaii follows, but Obama grew up there and is expected to win. After that is Wisconsin on February 19, but even if Hillary wins there will that be the tourniquet that stops the bleeding? Polling data available online doesn’t paint a clear picture in Wisconsin, but wasingtonpost.com's overview of the state's demographics might tend to favor Hillary:

(http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2008-presidential-candidates/primaries/states/wi/r/)

Wisconsin 2006 Census
Population: 5,556,506
Gender: 49.6 male, 50.4 female
Race: 87.5 white, 5.9 black, 2.0 asian, 0.3 indian, 0.0 pacific islander, 4.6 hispanic,
Age: 76.3% 18 years and over; 13.0% 65 years and over; Median age:
Median Household Income: $48,772
Families Below Poverty Level: 7.3%
Education: 11.1% of those over 25 have a bachelor's degree or higher

Next big stop, Ohio and Texas, where conventional wisdom seems to think Hillary will win, based on the relatively fewer affluent and educated types that tend to be in the pro-Obama demographic. But if people only vote because they're in a certain category, what happened in Massachusetts? I've been there and the place is full of six figure PhD's, so it's anybody's guess why Hillary cleaned Obama's clock there despite (or because of?) the Kennedy's anointing him the heir apparent to Camelot.

Ohio and Texas don't vote until March 4. In political terms, it's a couple of lifetimes between now and then so if Obama makes a clean sweep today, he may suck all the oxygen out of the room as the Clinton campaign tries to spin us on why she's not losing.