No one wants to say it, but it’s true.

Two interesting articles came out of the Politico and Time Magazine today.

Time outlines 14 realities Hillary Clinton needs to face up to, here’s a taste:

1. She can’t win the nomination without overturning the will of the elected delegates, which will alienate many Democrats.

2. She can’t win the nomination without a bloody convention battle — after which, even if she won, history and many Democrats would cast her as a villain.

3. Catching up in the popular vote is not out of the question — but without re-votes in Florida and Michigan it will be almost as impossible as catching up in elected delegates.

4. Nancy Pelosi and other leading members of Congress don’t think she can win and want her to give up. Same with superdelegate-to-the-stars Donna Brazile.

5. Obama’s skilled, close-knit staff can do things like silently kill re-votes in Florida and Michigan and not pay a political price.

And Politico sheds light on the spell the Clinton campaign has cast on the national media over her chances to actually win the Democratic nomination.

Unless Clinton is able to at least win the primary popular vote — which also would take nothing less than an electoral miracle — and use that achievement to pressure superdelegates, she has only one scenario for victory. An African-American opponent and his backers would be told that, even though he won the contest with voters, the prize is going to someone else. People who think that scenario is even remotely likely are living on another planet.

As it happens, many people inside Clinton’s campaign live right here on Earth. One important Clinton adviser estimated to Politico privately that she has no more than a 10 percent chance of winning her race against Barack Obama, an appraisal that was echoed by other operatives.

Ultimately, the questions raised by Politico make you think: had Obama been placed in the same circumstances of Hillary Clinton, wouldn’t the national media be saying, All right Barack, it’s over!

The reality is, someone needs to tap Hillary on the shoulder and have an awkward conversation with her. The math just doesn’t add up; her pathway to the nomination is one that disinfranchizes millions of voters and depends on party elite to overturn the popular will of the people. It won’t happen, and the longer we drag this process out, the more we hurt the inevitable Democratic nominee.

Despite Obama’s bad press this week, and he did have a bad week, the news today of Bill Richardson’s endorsement surely is an upset to the Clinton campaign.

And a report out of the Huffington Post: Obama has $30 million in the bank, compared with Hillary’s $3 million.

New Federal Election Commission reports show Obama raised at a clip of nearly $2 million a day in February, an open spigot of money that left him with $30 million in the bank for March.

Clinton had her best fundraising month as well, at $34.5 million. But counting her debts to vendors she ended with a net $3 million. And that’s not factoring the $5 million she lent her campaign and has not paid back.

I think the superdelegates and the popular will are behind Sen. Obama. Hillary needs to come back to Earth, face reality, and drop out. For the good of the party, and for the good of our nominee in the fall.

Today Iowa had it’s state Democratic convention, and according to NBC’s Chuck Todd:

The state’s 99 county Democratic parties held conventions today and the two campaigns were actively fighting to gain even more pledged delegates. At stake: the 14 pledged delegates John Edwards earned during the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses. Tonight, the Obama campaign claimed a gain of 7 pledged delegates, added to the 16 they earned on Jan. 3.

I averaged out the difference between the major media outlets’ estimates of the delegate lead (Washington Post, New York Times, AP, CNN, ABC, CBS & NBC). Right now Obama has a 123 delegate lead over Clinton, including among superdelegates. Since her Ohio win, she has lost 7 super delegates, while Obama netted 6 today alone. She also lost the Texas caucus, allowing Obama to net more delegates out of Texas.

Update: 
Looks like Obama will gain two more delegates after last night. According to Todd:

Last night, when I reported the net gain of 7 delegates for Obama out of yesterday’s 99 county Democratic conventions, it was based on 96% of conventions reporting. But there were two Cong. districts where Edwards was teetering on the edge of viability, the 1st and the 4th. Well, Edwards teetered the wrong way and Obama netted the delegates. So, here are the final results: … the overall delegate take for each candidate: 25 for Obama (that’s up from 16 during the Jan. 3 caucuses). 14 for Clinton (that’s down one from her 15 during Jan. 3). And 6 hung with Edwards, that’s down from 14 on Jan. 3.

Why Democrats should be Proud: Turnout & Enthusiasm
This year, turnout is unprecedented. Record numbers of people are involved in the Democratic primaries and turnout has consistently been two to three times that of the Republicans. In the swing state of Ohio, precincts saw ballot shortages and experienced extremely long lines. In Texas, the collective vote of both Obama and Clinton were about one million votes higher than John Kerry’s total in 2004. And in red states across America, Democratic turnout consistently trumps Republicans, creating some speculation that the state of Virginia might actually be in play.

With a resurgence of African Americans, youth and independent voters, as well as an unprecedented level of traditional Democrats turning out, it is inconceivable that the Dems could lose in 2008.

Why Democrats Should Worry: Hillary Rodham Clinton
Hillary Clinton won last night in terms of momentum, but she will ultimately lose the night in delegates. Rhode Island and Vermont will cancel each other out, and Clinton will net approximately 12 delegates out of Ohio. Because the Texas popular vote was so close and Obama won the inner cities where the most delegates are apportioned, he will win just enough to tie Clinton in the primary portion of the ‘Texas Tw0-Step.’ BUT Clinton’s lead will not hold up: Friday or Saturday the Texas Democratic party will release caucus totals, where Obama is expected to do exceeding well. 67 delegates are awarded by the Texas caucus, about 1/3 of the Texas Democratic delegation. The result, a net for Obama.

This puts Clinton in a tough spot mathematically. She has snapped his momentum but she will still need to win about 70% of the remaining delegates to win the nom. Even if both candidates were to win every single delegate awarded by the 16 remaining states, neither would reach the magic number of 2025.

Hillary will be behind by between 130-160 delegates (depending on your source). Her only way to victory remains through a ’smoke-filled room.’ She can only win the nomination by carrying superdelegates, and if the superdelegates decide this nomination, it will be hell at the DNC in Dever. There WILL be a riot. And I honestly don’t see myself voting for Clinton if there is any appearence of a backroom deal with party elite.

But Hillary’s campaign will not see the mathematical reality. They never will. She has too big an ego and the media thinks this is too good of a horse race to continually remind her that it is near impossible to win the nom without shady dealings.

So what we are about to witness is 7 weeks of hell until Pennsylvania (Apr. 22). I predict that Clinton will spend the next 3 weeks running positive TV ads in the 6 major media markets in the state, and then toward week 4, go increasingly negative. By the time it is Apr. 22 in PA, she will not only have thrown the ‘kitchen sink’ at Obama, but the entire kitchen. She will attack him on all his vulnerabilities–experience, foreign policy credentials, leadership qualities– and ultimately, only to her peril, lose us the election in 2008. She won’t win the 70% necessary for the nom, and I pray to God she won’t be nominated by shady dealings. So I only see her campaign as seeking to bloody up our eventual nominee, and expend valuable financial resources fighting an expensive primary campaign.

Republicans, sit back and enjoy. Hillary Clinton may be your best friend.

It fascinates me that we have “superdelegates” in the Democratic party. We are a party of the average person, the common folk, and yet we pick our presidential nominee based on 2/3 popular vote and 1/3 political elitism.

As a Democrat, I am ashamed that my party awards voting privilege to the party elite. Not only does it drown out the voice of popular will, but it alienates independent voters and promotes a system of special favors in exchange for political support.

We don’t want an American oligarchy. We are the Democratic party and we stand for more than that: we represent the Iowa farmer who is struggling to get his farm subsidy, the poor New York City mother who is dependent on government services to vaccinate her child, the elderly couple who are fighting against risky Social Security privatization, and the bright, young East St. Louis high school student who has the grades, has the drive but doesn’t have the money to go to college. The downtrodden–and it is such a shame that we have a system of “superdelegates” to suppress the voices of our base, our core constituencies.

But I digress.

Of late the candidate who has been benefiting most form the superdelegate phenomena is Sen. Hillary Clinton. Sen. Clinton currently leads Sen. Obama in the superdelegate count 239-174, but a trend has started. In recent days 13 superdelegates have moved to Obama, compared with 1 for Sen. Clinton. That includes two who have switched from Clinton to Obama, check it out below.

Also, AP has a story about just this if you’re interested. The massive exodus of superdelegates from the Clinton camp since their losing streak.

According to Democratic Convention Watch:

Endorsed Sen. Clinton 2/20/08 - today:
DNC Belinda Biofore (WV)

Endorsed Sen. Obama 2/20/08 - today:
DNC John Rednour (IL) From Clinton to Obama
DNC Donald Norcross (NJ)
DNC Dana Redd (NJ) From Clinton to Obama
Rep. Lloyd Doggett (TX)
Rep. Ron Kind (WI)
Rep. Kathy Castor (FL)
DNC Jason Rae (WI)
DNC Margaret Xifaras (MA)
Rep. Steve Kagen (WI)
DNC Sonni Nardi (OH)
Sen. Russ Feingold (WI)
DNC Connie Borde (DA)
DNC Leon Lynch (PA)