For the record, Senator Obama came out of the Mississippi primary with an advantage of 99,000 votes over Senator Clinton, more than I had predicted based on his edge in Alabama. That puts his margin in the nationwide popular vote -- by a measure that includes Florida but not Michigan -- at more than 500,000.
As I noted yesterday, it will take a colossal victory, almost 60%, for Clinton to get a 200,000 vote edge out of Pennsylvania. And if she does that, there is no plausible scheme under which she could pick up the remaining 300,000 votes to gain even the dubious moral claim of an edge in the popular vote.
It's well past time to enter the gracious winding-down stage of this long, and until recently, healthy campaign. The last candidate I can remember to keep punching like this even after the race was effectively decided was Jerry Brown in 1992. I'm sure Clinton remembers the unpleasantness of that 1992 convention. I doubt that she wants to be that guy.
-- Mark Schmitt
