The nomination…in eight minutes…

Though we’ve been at odds with Sen. Clinton at times throughout the past two years, we wanted to congratulate her, as well as her staff and supporters on a hard fought and spirited campaign. I hope over the coming weeks and months, the two teams can come together and create a massive force to take on John McCain in the fall.

Last night, the Democratic Party made history. Check out this great picture from our friends at the Huffington Post.

(click on the image to expand)

Continuing on a T-Mac theme, we’ll just let Josh Marshall take this one:

If I’m not mistaken Terrry McAuliffe just announced two new goalposts.

1. Hillary has gotten more votes and delegates since March 4th.

2. Hillary has gotten more votes in a nomination race than anyone in history. “Hillary Clinton has now received more votes than any candidate ever running for president in a primary.”

As I said in this morning’s episode of the TPMtv, I think that over the last week there’ve been tentative but hopeful signs of a deescalation of tensions between the two campaigns. But some of this stuff is just ridiculous. Point one sounds like it’s probably true. What relevance it has I have no idea. Point two though is really the kicker. Even if you change the rules and fully seat Michaigan and Florida and count them for the popular vote totals and don’t count any portion of the Michigan “uncommitted” (which were understood a the to be for Obama) vote for Obama, Hillary is still behind in the popular vote total. The only way she moves ahead in popular vote is if you do all that and don’t count four of the caucus states.

That’s right, Hillary’s “more votes than anyone else” total doesn’t count caucus-goers in Iowa, Maine, Nevada and Washington where vote totals were not reported. What’s that about counting every vote and disenfranchisement?

UDPATE: Jonathan Alter has more on the serious flaws in the Clinton argument over at Newsweek.

As we’ve seen over the past two years, primaries can be highly divisive. However, through it all, Terry McAuliffe has been a pleasure to watch - frustrating at times, but always entertaining. Whatever the Clinton’s are paying him (I suspect nothing), it’s definitely not enough! Nice work TPM!

It is certainly a minor point, but the media continues to be tremendously lazy with the actual results of yesterday’s Pennsylvania primary. As of 11 am the day after the race, with 99.44% reporting (still missing 52 districts out of 9,264) Clinton is on top of Obama by 9.2%, not the 10% that is widely reported. Yes, this is a small number, but there is a tremendous psychological difference between a double-digit and single-digit win.

Where we stand today (according to the AP Delegate Tracker):
Obama: 1,481 pledged + 233 super = 1,714 delegates
Clinton: 1,331 pledged + 258 super = 1,589 delegates

I’m not sure if this includes this morning’s superdelegate endorsement of Obama by Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry. As Chuck Todd noted on NBC last night, Clinton now needs to win 70% of the delegates on May 6 in NC and IN and 80% after that date if she can’t meet that number.

UPDATE: Video of Chuck Todd after the jump.
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