One way or another, tonight is Obama's

No matter what happens in South Dakota and Montana, it now appears certain that the Illinois senator is ready to go over the top.

Published June 3, 2008 11:27PM (EDT)

We're getting closer and closer to the time when Barack Obama's campaign will be able to officially declare victory in the race for the Democratic nomination.

At the moment, the Obama camp claims to be just 10 delegates away from the nomination. And, as Ben Smith points out, we know of at least six additional superdelegates who are ready to endorse Obama but haven't yet done so officially and are apparently not included in the campaign's tally.

Just a little while ago, the steady trickle of delegates heading to the senator from Illinois turned into a flood, but now the pace has slowed again and the Obama camp hasn't announced a new delegate pickup in an hour. If I were a betting man -- and I am -- I'd say they may try to hold off for a while on bringing in more superdelegates. That's important for purely symbolic purposes; especially when Hillary Clinton and her supporters are making an argument about the popular vote, the Obama camp likely will want to make sure that it's the pledged delegates from Montana and South Dakota, not superdelegates, who finally push Obama over the finish line.


By Alex Koppelman

Alex Koppelman is a staff writer for Salon.

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