One point less than is being reported, though many points more than I expected (and of course hoped for). That is to say, Hillary didn’t win it by 10 points–the results right now have her with a 9.39% lead, so let’s establish that and stay with the facts. It may seem like a quibble, but you can be certain it is one that the Clinton campaign (and unsurprisingly, the media) wants to claim: a double-digit win instead of a single-digit one.

But even that is relatively meaningless, because for all the fuss being made, what I said before the election and what has been established for some time still stands true: Hillary needed a lot more than this to have a chance at winning the nomination.

She made no more than an 11-delegate gain, although perhaps as small as an 8-delegate gain. After the results so far tonight, CNN has Obama ahead by 138 delegates; MSNBC by 133; CBS and USA Today/AP by 126.

The polls show Indiana (84 delegates) as going either way, but certainly closer than Pennsylvania. North Carolina (134 delegates, the last big state left) shows Obama beating Clinton by as much as she won Pennsylvania by. Clinton will probably then get West Virginia (39 delegates) and Kentucky (60 delegates), Obama should get Oregon (65 delegates), Hillary Puerto Rico (63 delegates), and then Obama probably gets Montana (24 delegates) and South Dakota (23 delegates).

But remember: like tonight, winning a state does not take all, and even Clinton’s 9% lead did not give her 9% more delegates–at most, she’ll get 6%, but perhaps even as low as 4%. That’s how it works. Now work those numbers. Let’s say Indiana is a tie, but that Hillary gets a 20-delegate gain in Kentucky, 15 in West Virginia, and maybe 5 in Puerto Rico. Not even counting Obama’s gains, that still leaves Hillary more than 80 delegates short of Obama, and Obama has been picking up superdelegates far faster than Hillary has been. Even if Hillary steals away Montana and South Dakota, that would only add a paltry half-dozen delegate-lead, if even that much. And Obama is set to add at least 10 (probably 15 or more) delegates in North Carolina, and another half-dozen or so in Oregon, keeping Hillary almost a hundred delegates short of just catching up.

But winning? Preposterous. And the superdelegates are professional enough to see that. The math simply denies the possibility. Somehow I doubt they’ll start stacking up for Obama after Pennsylvania–it would seem too much like trying to overturn a popular vote (never mind the cumulative totals). They’ll probably creep up over the next few weeks, but I expect to see movement in early May, after North Carolina and Indiana. Hillary will try to make as much as possible out of Pennsylvania, but even nothing but Clinton victories from here on out would not put her ahead in pledged delegates–she’d need to powerhouse overwhelmingly just to get the superdelegates to hand her the race, and the likelihood of that is near to zero percent. That even with the media continuing to bash Obama mercilessly as they have been in the past several weeks.

Chris Matthews put it this way:

“…But I really do think it’s a strange time because we’re all watching to see who won, but as Nora pointed out, 4 out of 5 ,or so, of the Hillary voters today believe she’s still in the running. That this is still up in the air and I think that was probably a mistake of the media. I think in the effort of the media, to try to keep this game going, we’ve created the delusion that somehow this race is still open. I don’t think it is open. I think if you look at the numbers Barack has to really blow it in the weeks ahead to lose.”

The only thing going for Hillary is that she now reportedly is ahead in the popular vote as opposed to delegate counts. But that won’t win the nomination for her, even if every last superdelegate goes her way. The fact is, you’ve simply got to ask for far too much for Hillary to win, with the faint possible exception of stringing it out to the convention and then winning it with back-room politics… and I simply cannot see the party letting that happen.

But hey, I was wrong about Pennsylvania. I just hope I’m not wrong about this.

Update:I thought the popular-vote-for-Clinton claim sounded fishy. MSNBC gives the real figures: Hillary wins the popular vote only by cheating, as you have to count both Florida and Michigan, and even then you have to deny Obama the “uncommitted” votes, most of which were clearly for him; Obama didn’t campaign in Florida (ha has always narrowed Clinton’s lead by campaigning), and he wasn’t even on the ballot in Michigan.

But since neither Florida nor Michigan had a “real” primary that gave them the chance to see both candidates equally and in person, and more importantly, because those primary contests broke the rules and so do not get included in the actual count, you have to discard those numbers… which leaves Obama with a half-million-vote lead in the popular count.