Presumed Nomination Watch: Obama gains 3.5 delegate votes to Clinton's 2

In the final day before the final primary day of 2008 five superdelegates endorsed Obama, (two half votes from Michigan and one from Florida) bringing his total to 334 superdelegates and 2074.5 hard count overall and leaving him him 42.5 short of the needed 2017. Those who endorsed are: Jerome Segovia (DNC-VA), Nancy DiNardo (DNC-CT) providing full votes and the half votes were Brenda Lawrence (DNC-MI), Lu Battaglieri (DNC-MI) and Janee Murphy (DNC-FL). Clinton picked up another supedelegate from LA; Chris Whittington (DNC-LA) and one from her home state, Irene Stein (DNC-NY).

Tomorrow Montana and South Dakota go to the polls with their 31 pledged delegates at stake, (MT has 16 and SD has 15). Obama is expected to prevail to the level of possibly as much as Oregon and should pick up 17-19 delegates, leaving between 26 and 28 superdelegate endorsements short. Remember Obama's campaign should have a minimum of 20 Add-On superdelegates yet to be determined at various state conventions and committee meetings through June 21st. Remember also Pelosi is holding those 6 Pelosi Pledged superdelegates who have publicly stated they will fall behind the pledged delegate winner. This puts Obama in the virtual winner circle outside the continuing endorsements by the remaining superdelegates.

Another way to look at it is the number of opportunity delegates Clinton is losing and thereby mathematically will be eliminated from getting to 2017. Currently she is at 1916.5 (or 201.5 short), and there are the following circumstances. She is expected to gain only 13 delegates tomorrow, bringing her total up to 1929 (or 187 short). Further she is expected to win 15 Add-On's bringing her total to 1944 or 172 short where she would have to gain the rest from the superdelegate pool----which is really 162 (removing the Add-On's). If we take Pelosi and her pledged club members at their word the pool is reduced further to 156 or an impossibility of coming up 16 short----or she would have to either switch superdelegates now endorsed to Obama or sweep South Dakota and Montana in somehow gaining an additional 16 delegates. Oh there is one other place, the 13.5 still neutral Edwards delegates. This is why the last gasp will be to go to the credentials committee and strip Obama of the 29.5 Michigan delegates. Far fetch this is going to happen but even if it does it does not allow Clinton to put those delegates in her camp for they are uncommitted and can still vote for Obama.

This is over except for the timing and speeches. By the way MSNBC has just reported that the Clinton campaign has shut down their advance teams and is calling all senior advisor's to New York for a morning meeting.