A discussion was overheard In the Ethereal Land regarding Hillary’s chances of taking the democratic nomination. Some people were of the opinion that the delegate count was so close that Hillary had just as good of a chance of winning it as she ever did. Others argued that it is almost certain that she will lose because their are not enough states left for her to make up her short fall.

In the spirit of public service, I thought I would throw out some numbers for those who are not following this contest very closely so that people could make up their own mind. (All numbers taken from here.)

First let us compare what New York Times calls projected pledged delegates. These are the delegates that each candidate has already won in the various primaries and caucus. The only reason that the New York Times calls them projected pledged delegates because a lot of the caucus are non-binding. In other words, just because your supporters elected a slate of delegates does not mean they are legally bound to support you in some states. But this is a distinction without a difference. A slate voted in by Obama supporters will vote for Obama and vis a versa. The Associated Press does not even bother to break out the two types of delegates for this very reason.

So by looking at the data we can see that Hillary has 1,250.5 pledged delegates and Obama has 1,418.5. Again, these are all the delegates that have been won in the various primaries and caucus up this point. This does not seem like a very big lead for Obama does it?

But if you do the math you will see that this puts Obama 168 delegates ahead. To put that number in perspective, Pennsylvania only has 158 delegates to offer. So even if Hillary won every delegate that Pennsylvania has to offer, she still would not have caught up to Obama in the pledged delegate count.

We all know that Hillary will not win every delegate that Pennsylvania has to offer. So let us run some more figures. Not counting the super delegates, there are 566 delegates left. That sounds like a lot when you consider that Obama only has a 168 delegate lead. But remember that Obama is going to keep picking up delegates too. In order for Hillary to beat Obama in the pledged delegate race, she is going to have to win a little under 30% (29.68 if you want to get technical) more delegates than Obama. To put it another way, Hillary is going to have to win 65% of the 566 delegates that are remaining.

Since Pennsylvania has such a huge proportion of the delegates that are left, this means that Hillary has to win at least 65% of Pennsylvania delegates to have a hope of overtaking Obama. Especially when you factor in the fact that the next biggist state up for grabs is North Carolina with 115 delegates. Since that state is expected to go for Obama, Hillary has to do really well in Pennsylvania.

And what are the odds that Hillary will win 65% of Pennsylvania delegates? Well, none of the polls put here anywhere near the levels she needs to pull off that kind of feat. If she did mange something close to 65% she would have won Pennsylvania by a greater margin then she won New York. And if Obama wins North Carolina like he won South Carolina, he will more then make up for any gains she makes in Pennsylvania.

To be fair, there are some contests coming up where Hillary will probably win by 65% or more. Puerto Rico with its 55 delegates comes to mind. And it is conceivable that if everything went right that she could win all of the contests coming up except North Carolina. But winning 65% of all the delegates that are at stake? I can’t conceive of any way that can happen.

That brings us to super delegates. Right know Hillary is ahead on most “on the record” counts of super delegates. The New York Times put her at 259 and Obama at 226. But there is still 241 undecided super delegates out there so in theory the counts are still wide open. In practices, Obama has been gaining on the super delegate count quite rapidly. Many super delegates who came out for Hillary have switched to Obama and Hillary is clearly concerned that Obama will wind up winning the majority of super delegates.

Nobody can predict how the super delegates will go. But if you read the comments of the undecided super delegates over at the New York Times site, you would think that Obama would take more of the undecided super delegates then Hillary.