I'm sorry, but it really is the delegates, stupid!

****UPDATE***

Markos at Daily Kos agrees about Hillary's distinct lack of progress in closing the delegate gap.

**************

I was amazed by tonight's display in the media. Some of the pundits went so far as to shun the more level-headed of their brotherhood when they dared to claim that "it all comes down to the math."

However, they are right. Math is not loyal to one candidate or another and it's not wrong.

The good folks at Open Left have a table which shows exactly what the wins for Clinton mean for her delegate-wise.

Here are the delegate counts so far for the night:

Clinton = 155
Obama = 141

But there are several catches...

The 8% still left to count in Ohio is mostly in Cuyahoga County. This translates to Cleveland, the largest city/county in the state. Also, it's a county where Obama modestly dominates. So Obama will probably end up a delegate or two closer to Hillary as a result when it's all over.

However, the biggest catch - Hillary won the Texas Primary, which is 2/3 of the delegates. The Caucus awards 1/3 and is still in process (34%) and for now, Obama is leading 55% to 45%.

So while unlikely that Obama will end up winning more delegates than Hillary this evening, he could significantly shrink the already small gap.

If things remain the same in Texas and Ohio, it could be Clinton with roughly 187 and Obama with 182. If all she's gained from her "huge victory" is roughly 5 to 10 delegates over Obama, he's still winning and she's still losing. It's also looking more unlikely that she'll be able to ever pull ahead in pledged delegates.

All of this buzz is unwarranted and simply encourages the Clinton campaign to continue to damage the likely nominee, Obama.