John Edwards just endorsed Barack Obama. If Edwards' 19 delegates take his advice and vote for Obama, then Obama now has 1,620 pledged delegates to Clinton's 1,441. There are 189 delegates left to be pledged in remaining states. Clinton needs to win 184 of them (or 97 percent) in order to win, whereas Obama only needs 6 more delegates to put him over the top. To be clear, these are the numbers for pledged delegates, not including super delegates. Obama leads in that category as well, but I don't think anyone will or should stand for super delegates deciding an election.
There are, of course, states that have not yet voted. I'd love it if they could have a say in this thing. If it were up to me I would put every primary on one day in late October. It's not my fault that this particular race is over. It's not over in the way races are for candidates whom the corporate media hounds out of the race following one or two states. This one really is over.
Florida and Michigan are not included. The candidates did not compete in those states, and allowing them to do so now would involve a change in the rules mid-election, which seems highly unlikely.
Just as the Democratic primary has been over for several months, it's still over. Clinton cannot win. Period. She can only hope for an anti-democratic coup by Super Delegates that would destroy the Democratic Party. And she'd have to be delusional to even hope for THAT at this point.
So, why does the corporate media behave as if it's still a contest, and why does the independent media obediently fall into line? Presumably those two questions have two different answers.
When has any other candidate been kept on life-support by media corporations in this way? Hasn't the standard for dropping out always been - for every other candidate - the impossibility of winning, not actually having lost?
What can Clinton hope to gain from staying in other than hurting Obama's chances in order to avoid his running as an incumbent in 4 years?
And why is it so difficult for people to think for themselves and let the media and the Super Delegates and the Democratic Party know that WE HAVE HAD ENOUGH?
Don't believe me? Don't know how to do addition? Don't own a calculator? Here's a video of Chris Matthews admitting the media's role in this farce:
http://www.davidswanson.org
DAVID SWANSON is a co-founder of After Downing Street, a writer and activist, and the Washington Director of Democrats.com. He is a board member of Progressive Democrats of America, and serves on the Executive Council of the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild, TNG-CWA. He has worked as a newspaper reporter and as a communications director, with jobs including Press Secretary for Dennis Kucinich's 2004 presidential campaign, Media Coordinator for the International Labor Communications Association, and three years as Communications Coordinator for ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Swanson obtained a Master's degree in philosophy from the University of Virginia in 1997.
