Legal Commentary

For all the noise, last night didn't change much in terms of delegates on the Democratic side. By the accounts I've heard and read, Obama and Clinton split the 1,678 pledged (i.e., non-super) delegates almost exactly down the middle. I think I read that  Obama's folks are saying 845 for them, though I think I also read that Clinton's folks are disputing that. In any case, it now seems extremely unlikely that either candidate will clinch the nomination without help from the super delegates. As I noted yesterday, doing so would require roughly 62% of the total pledged delegates. With somewhere between 1800-2000 of the total of 3,253 available pledged delegates now decided, the campaigns are very close. It seems very unlikely that either will get to 62%.

In terms of narrative, I think a delegate tie was a win for Obama last night. As I mentioned yesterday, "winning" states is irrelevant on the Dem side. And to the extent that the media focus on that issue, Obama "won" more states than Clinton did (no matter what winds up happening with NM, where last I knew they were still counting). Given that Clinton was being treated as the clear front-runner after winning New Hampshire, a dead heat looks pretty good for Obama. Moreover, he has more money than she does, and as everyone notes, he does better when he can personally campaign for extended periods, as will be the case from here on. So if I had to bet, I'd bet that Obama will go into the convention with more pledged delegates. After that, anything could happen.

Finally, I note that the trends on intrade.com support my view in the previous paragraph. The betting at intrade.com had Clinton as between a 3:2 and 2:1 favorite going in to last night's results. As of this morning, her contract was trading at something like 51 cents on the dollar. In other words, the marginal gambler is now laying even money on Clinton (and also, thus, on Obama).