Thursday, April 24, 2008

Obama's magic number is 291. Help him clinch.

It's like baseball.

Near the end of the season, teams that are going to make the playoffs have a magic number of wins (or their rivals' losses) to clinch their spot. We also have a magic number: the number of delegates to pick up in order to clinch the nomination. And our goal is to get that magic number by July 1 when every superdelegate (according to the Chairman of the Party) should make their opinion known.

Our magic number is 291 (according to this Sun-Times report quoting the Obama campaign). Barack Obama needs 291 more delegates to earn the 2024 to win the nomination. And our job is to help secure 291 more delegates for the Obama campaign over the next eight weeks.

There's not all that much more to say besides our efforts ought be focused on winning these primaries and caucuses -- and ensuring that the superdelegates that we are in a position to influence make their pledge public.

The superdelegate closest to where I live is Rahm Emanuel. He's in a tough spot, since his primary voters supported Obama (he lives in Chicago) but his personal friendship with the Clintons is a big part of his life. However, this is a tough business, and in my view, it's time to publicly endorse Obama so that we can move that magic number down to zero.

Remember, the only reason that there is any discussion at all about chaos in Denver is that there are some superdelegates who have so far refused to publicly make a choice between Senators Clinton and Obama. That refusal to choose is damaging.

The magic number is 291. Let's bring it down to zero and clinch this thing.

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