HALPERIN'S TAKE: The Current Paths to the Nomination for Obama and Clinton

What you should focus on: which Democratic candidate can get a majority of the delegates.

It is almost certainly the case that neither can reach a majority without significantly more support from the superdelegates than they have now.

Spin to disregard:

1. Who wins the popular vote.
2. Who wins the most states.
3. Who wins which states.
4. The margins of victory in individual states.
5. Who wins which demographic groups.
6. Who wins independents in open primaries.
7. The fight over seating the Florida and Michigan delegations.
8. Who does better against John McCain in polling.

For Obama to win, he needs some combination of the following:

1. Beat Clinton in Texas and/or Ohio.
2. Maintain his elected delegate lead by grinding out victories and keeping losses close.
3. Convince superdelegates to coalesce around the leader in elected delegates.

For Clinton to win, she needs some combination of the following:

1. Win the most delegates in Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
2. Whittle Obama's elected delegate lead down to a statistically insignificant margin.
3. Convince superdelegates that she is the stronger general election candidate and better prepared to be president - an argument which could be helped by an intervening outside event and/or negative campaigning.