I’ve been seeing headlines on CNN and the like saying that Clinton claims the tide has turned. Has it really? Let’s take a look at the numbers.

• Clinton won the Pennsylvania primary with 55% of the popular vote. CNN shows her with 83 of the 158, but with two delegates unallocated since the results are still not completely in. For the sake of explanation, let’s just give her the other two, for a total of 85 delegates to Obama’s 73.
• There are 492 delegates remaining to be allocated in the primary process
• In order to surpass Obama in the popular vote, Clinton needs to win 326 of those delegates.
• In order to gain that many delegates, Clinton needs to get at least 66.2% of the popular vote.

Given her past performance and the landscape as it is, it would take something truly astounding for Clinton to oust Obama. While she might have won Pennsylvania, in real terms, she has lost ground to Obama. There are fewer pieces on the chessboard and the game is even more heavily weighted against her.

The question I keep on asking myself is: why is Hillary still in the race? Am I missing something? Perhaps she will succeed in convincing the DNC to put Michigan and Florida back in play.
Does she think she can persuade enough superdelegates to come to her side? Or does she think that if she drops out now, people will think she’s a quitter and not respect her in the future? Or, given her comments about McCain’s lifetime of experience she’d rather see McCain win than Obama, hence her scorched-earth campaign tactics? I honestly don’t know.