Interesting use of stats: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/2/9/13227/22519/239/453361
Seems wildly uphill for Barry. He somehow has to win Texas or Ohio plus Pennsylvania (or, I suppose, Texas and Ohio but not Pennsylvania), and even if he does this, the weird superdelegate concept means that 800 delegates who likely owe their jobs to Bill Clinton have the deciding vote. That said, you would think that Obama’s big advantage versus McCain relative to Hillary (to begin with, he won’t be a lightning rod to bring Hillary-haters to the general election) would focus downticket folks on their own interest. If you are a Democrat running in a marginal district, do you really want the hard right to be energized?
Also, Hillary’s dominance in states that are already Democrat (California, NY, NJ, MA) does not bode well for her ability to pick up states Kerry lost. And I am pretty sure she needs to win at least one of them to put a Democrat in the White House.
