Congrats to Sen. Obama on his victory. I look forward to a President Obama come 2009.
But I want to take a moment to pause and reflect on just how close this nomination election was. For first time since the introduction of superdelegates, the distance between the top two candidates, in terms of pledge delegates, is less than the number of superdelegates. Only 31 pledged delegates are up for grabs tonight and Obama needs some of these delegates to secure the nomination. (In contrast, the last primary day in 1984, which Mondale needed to garner a majority of delegates, included California and New Jersey.)
Obama's popular vote margin (with MI allocated by the exit poll) will end up being about 70-80K, or 0.2% of the popular vote (48.1% - 47.9%). Wow.
I'd also guess that this nomination race is the last time the eventual winner needs the last day of elections to secure a majority of delegates before the parties decide to reform the system and move to a semi-national or regional primary process. Something to tell the grandkids about :)
Next Morning Update: Including Michigan's 30,000 write-ins and allocating Michigan by the exit poll, my final popular vote numbers are 18,087,958 (48.0%) for Obama to 18,004,743 for Clinton (47.8%), a difference of 83,215.
hello Aaron, I was told about you by Prof. Stephen at M.I.T. I am working on some models similar to you relating Senator Obama's campaign and i would like to take ur expertise to do the best quality work. I can also introduce you to the campaign manager, in case u are interested in working with me.
Looking forward to hear from you. Please write to me, to my mail id with your phone number so that i can call you.
Best,
Sankha Banerjee