David Plouffe: Doing the Math

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe sent out this email today.

Paul --

Our projections show the most likely outcome of yesterday's elections will be that Hillary Clinton gained 187 delegates, and we gained 183.

That's a net gain of 4 delegates out of more than 370 delegates available from all the states that voted.

For comparison, that's less than half our net gain of 9 delegates from the District of Columbia alone. It's also less than our net gain of 8 from Nebraska, or 12 from Washington State. And it's considerably less than our net gain of 33 delegates from Georgia.

The task for the Clinton campaign yesterday was clear. In order to have a plausible path to the nomination, they needed to score huge delegate victories and cut into our lead.

They failed.

It's clear, though, that Senator Clinton wants to continue an increasingly desperate, increasingly negative -- and increasingly expensive -- campaign to tear us down.

That's her decision. But it's not stopping John McCain, who clinched the Republican nomination last night, from going on the offensive. He's already made news attacking Barack, and that will only become more frequent in the coming days.

Right now, it's essential for every single supporter of Barack Obama to step up and help fight this two-front battle. In the face of attacks from Hillary Clinton and John McCain, we need to be ready to take them on.

Will you make an online donation of $25 right now?

https://donate.barackobama.com/math

The chatter among pundits may have gotten better for the Clinton campaign after last night, but by failing to cut into our lead, the math -- and their chances of winning -- got considerably worse.

Today, we still have a lead of more than 150 delegates, and there are only 611 pledged delegates left to win in the upcoming contests.

By a week from today, we will have competed in Wyoming and Mississippi. Two more states and 45 more delegates will be off the table.

But if Senator Clinton wants to continue this, let's show that we're ready.

Make an online donation of $25 now to show you're willing to fight for this:

https://donate.barackobama.com/math

This nomination process is an opportunity to decide what our party needs to stand for in this election.

We can either take on John McCain with a candidate who's already united Republicans and Independents against us, or we can do it with a campaign that's united Americans from all parties around a common purpose.

We can debate John McCain about who can clean up Washington by nominating a candidate who's taken more money from lobbyists than he has, or we can do it with a campaign that hasn't taken a dime of their money because we've been funded by you.

We can present the American people with a candidate who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with McCain on the worst foreign policy disaster of our generation, and agrees with him that George Bush deserves the benefit of the doubt on Iran, or we can nominate someone who opposed the war in Iraq from the beginning and will not support a march to war with Iran.

John McCain may have a long history of straight talk and independent thinking, but he has made the decision in this campaign to offer four more years of the very same policies that have failed us for the last eight.

We need a Democratic candidate who will present the starkest contrast to those failed policies of the past.

And that candidate is Barack Obama.

Please make a donation of $25 now:

https://donate.barackobama.com/math

Thank you,

David

David Plouffe
Campaign Manager
Obama for America