Unsurprisingly, Senator Hillary Clinton's (D-N.Y.) campaign is touting a "major victory" in the March 4 primary contests, where she won three out of four, losing only Vermont (and probably the Texas caucus, though she narrowly won the primary). So it may seem an odd time to call for her to exit the race.
Yet for all of the media bluster and campaign spin coming out of Tuesday's primaries, we haven't seen much movement in the race itself. Hillary is doing better today than she was on Monday, but the real change in the race has been fairly minimal. Remember, it doesn't really matter who Wolf Blitzer or Chris Matthews tell us "has the momentum" - it's about delegates.
While some data is still coming in, a combination of Associated Press and CNN estimates yields a Clinton gain on Obama of only about 13 delegates out of 370 total being awarded in the March 4 contests. That difference almost certainly will change, but probably not by more than a few delegates in either direction.
Coming in to the latest primary contest this past Tuesday, there was a total pledged delegate count of 1,230 for Clinton's rival, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), to 1,087 for her campaign. You can debate these numbers as much as you want, but they include estimates from both the Clinton and Obama campaigns, as well as the New York Times, CNN and the Associated Press. So the gap has closed, but only narrowly, from 140-150 delegates down to 130-140. The estimates vary widely, but these figures are accepted by both campaigns and the media at large.
So by any estimate, the Obama campaign has a pledged-delegate lead of 130-150, even after the Clinton "firewalls" of Ohio and Texas. There are only 3,253 pledged delegates to be awarded in this contest, meaning that roughly 560 remain after Tuesday's results are finalized.
I know this has been number-heavy for a political piece, but we're getting to the good stuff. Hillary needs to make up a pledged delegate gap of roughly 140. This means she has to win about 62 percent of the vote in remaining contests.
Is this possible? The remaining contests include Obama-friendly states like Mississippi, Wyoming and Oregon, while Clinton looks ahead to Pennsylvania, a state demographically similar to Ohio. But it seems extremely unlikely that she can win 60 percent in Pennsylvania or other states that are expected to go to her, including West Virginia and Kentucky.
Furthermore, another concern lies in the fact that she has to win over 60 percent not only in these states but also in states where she isn't expected to come close to her competitor, like Wyoming, South Dakota and even Puerto Rico and Guam (which do get to seat delegates, despite the fact that they do not have electoral votes in the general election).
The next big question is about superdelegates. Clinton's campaign claims that she can win with superdelegates, and mathematically, she still could - if nearly all of the remaining undecided superdelegates sway to her side. Most of the major superdelegates, including former Vice President Al Gore, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson (A '70, F '71) and Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, remain undecided. They say that they are waiting for the votes to come in and will act based on the will of the people. This means that they won't give Clinton a victory that she hasn't earned by winning the most pledged delegates.
Of course, something will have to be done about Florida and Michigan, and superdelegates can change their minds up until the vote happens at those conventions in August. But though both candidates have run a strong race up to this point, it's time for it to end.
Clinton needs to let the voters speak and accept what they (we) have said. At this point, it isn't possible for her to win without some earth-shattering occurrence - and this doesn't even begin to touch on the negative campaigning and dirty tricks we have seen from the Clinton campaign thus far.
Obama ought to be the Democratic Party's nominee for president, and Hillary can go back to being a highly esteemed senator from New York. I know her reputation will be tarnished, and she may lose some prestige - but on the whole, there are worse things than almost becoming the president of the United States. Most of us won't even get that far.
Will Ehrenfeld is a sophomore majoring in peace and justice studies.
