For Clinton’s supporters, the question is about a joint ticket in spite of any party elder’s admonitions.

The next question many more Democrats have is whether Obama can win in November. He beat Clinton in 29 states plus DC and in all the US territories except Puerto Rico. She won 19 contests, plus Florida where neither campaigned, plus Michigan, where Obama’s name wasn’t on the ballot. He won more independents and more Republicans in any state with an open primary. The doubters know there’s a lot more white voters than black in the general election. Yet though the percentages differed, that was true in the primaries and white women were the largest demographic of all, which was to Clinton’s advantage in most states. Obama won a majority of the popular vote despite that.

He also faced more negative debate questions, overcame associations that provoked dips in his popularity and overcame the bear that has plagued presidential contests since the Civil Rights era - racism - by winning seven of the eleven states of the old Confederacy. Eight, if you count the fact that he won the majority of the pledged delegates in Texas while losing the popular vote there by under 2.5%.

Popular vote claims remain disputable and have no real bearing on anything anyways. Just ask the guy skippy recommends about that.

That region remains Obama’s biggest obstacle in the general election where most analysts suggest he can win no more than three states. But can he win the Presidency? He currently is behind in all eleven of those states but is ahead in state-by-state polling in other regions, providing him more than 270 electoral votes.

Yes we can … elect him. He won just under half (7) of the last 16 contests, but in that three month period, Clinton only closed the pledged delegate gap by 41. She was 164 pledged delegates behind him before the most successful run of her primary season and could close only 25% of that gap.

Clinton’s determination improved him as a candidate. He already had the best funded and best managed campaign going for him. Now McCain faces more money, more team talent and a better campaigner. And there may be no more hidden associations and potential scandals to exploit. In fact, during that final three months, both Clinton and McCain have chosen to adopt a more populist style and tone to their campaigning because of Obama and on McCain, much of it - from his visits to ‘forgotten Americans’ like the ones he spoke to in Selma, to last night’s speech in Kenner, Louisiana - has looked rather lame.

He has tried inviting Obama to a joint tour of Baghdad and now he’s trying to bait him again by inviting him to a series of townhall debates through the summer. That’s the only venue where McCain performs well, not in standard debates or in giving speeches before crowds. Team Obama won’t let those townhalls happen without modifying the terms.

But back to the immediate hurdle Obama has to leap is the question of whether Clinton’s the best choice for VP. She’s made it increasingly clear she’d really like the job, though she’s given no public indication that she’ll rebel against a lesser role and draw her supporters into such a divisive tussle. I can’t predict the outcome of that frank and private discussion to come. Clinton could choose to play hardball but it poses greater risks to her future political career than it does to Obama’s, so an educated guess says she’ll steer clear if he has a substantive leadership role to offer that also interests her. I’m more inclined to believe he’ll pursue Sam Nunn (now new and improved!), Wes Clark, Gary Hart or Chuck Hagel for VP, though any of them - including Clinton - would also be a plus as Secretary of State. And don’t overlook Chris Dodd. (h/t to Al Giordano)

Though her legislative supporters are offering to aid the effort, publicly at least, Obama’s already handed off the task to a VP search team of his own.

So what evidence remains that Obama can win? It’s still in the math, mateys.

Yesterday’s national Gallup poll had McCain ahead 46%-45%. Today’s Rasmussen poll has Obama ahead 47%-45%.

Nate Silver (aka: Poblano) at FiveThirtyEight.com is a baseball statistician who’s created a statistical model for predicting the primaries this year. His accuracy has beat the national pollsters in most of the primaries he’s covered.

You’d have to be a statistics addict to fully comprehend how his system works, but a couple of things are fairly straightforward:

1) The second number in the ranges listed below is a method of averaging multiple polls. He weights each poll based on the accuracy of the pollster, the recentness of the poll and the number of respondents polled to arrive at this AverageMargin.

2) The first number in the ranges below is his Regression Estimate Margin (I shortened it to RegressionMargin). This is far more complicated to compile as it also weights for numerous other demographic variables. Religion, age, ethnicity are just a few of these factors and there’s also a factor for how the state has voted in past elections, plus other variables.

3) He updates his numbers daily.

In compiling this list, I used his Regression number to list them in this specific order, which begins with the most Democratic likely outcome to the most Republican likely outcome. As it’s common to refer to states as red (Republican) to purple (Toss-Up) to blue (Democrat), I changed font colors to help group them for faster comprehension. So the Safe Democrat states are the darkest blue (navy) and the Safe Republican ones are the darkest red (maroon).

Based on my own, unscientific observations over several decades of elections, I’ve reached several broad conclusions that I also utilize in determining where to draw the color changes:

1) If a state is polling with one candidate displaying a lead above 7%, it’s very rare for the losing candidate to make up that ground in the final 6 weeks of a campaign. As we’re 22 weeks away, this can be done, though it’s still uncommon.

2) If a state is polling with one candidate displaying a lead above 10%, it’s almost impossible for the losing candidate to make up that ground in the final 6 weeks of a campaign. It usually takes something extraordinary to happen, like a strong third-party candidacy or an enormous amount of fear that a candidate is too extreme or too weak for states like this to cross over.

3) Pollsters indicate a margin of error in their polls, most commonly between 3 and 4 percent. Utilizing a midway point of 3.5%, I use that as a basis for defining the above two categories as well. This is not nearly as scientific and mathematically correct as the number crunching Nate does, but our purposes are different. He’s trying to nail down exact outcomes in each state, for each day. I’m trying to provide a visual representation of outcomes within groups of states for easy-to-understand analysis by folks who aren’t numbers geeks.

4) As a result, my groupings are shown as follows:

a) The line of asterisks shows the exact line between states marginally for Obama or marginally for McCain.

b) From that zero point, any states within a regression margin of 3.5% or less is rated a tossup and colored purple. These are states that could conceivably shift even in the final week of a campaign.

c) Another redder or bluer color is added for states that display regression margins from 3.5% to 7%. These states can shift in the final six weeks of a campaign, but it’s rare to do so in the final week. I call them Leaners. Tossups and Leaners are considered the most vital swing states likely to see the heaviest campaigning efforts, particularly in the final six weeks.

d) A pure red or blue is the next level, with margins polling between 7% and 10.5%. At our current 22 weeks, they can be reached, but it’s rare to see them cross over in the final six weeks. I call them Likely (to remain Republican or Democrat). Some efforts are likely to be made to campaign here, especially before the national conventions, as candidates want to keep them as Likely or pull their opponent’s Likely into the Leaner group to have a real shot at them post-convention.

e) States displaying margins of 10.5% or greater, even this far out are considered Safe. Only in rare blowout elections are they likely to cross over and if they do, the trend should be visible in the next 3 months.

The column titles and the resulting lists are shown below, with brief explanations added to the end of each color group.

State/ElectoralVotes … RegressionMargin - AverageMargin

DC/3 … 62.8* (* no polls, only Nate’s regression number)
VT/3 … 19.0 - 21.7
HI/4 … 16.5 - 18.9
MA/12 … 14.3 - 9.2
IL/21 … 12.4 - 15.8
RI/4 … 12.2 - 12.7
MD/10 … 12.0 - 12.5
NY/31 … 12.0 - 11.7
CA/55 … 11.4 - 12.5
DE/3 … 11.3 - 11.8

There are 9 states plus DC with 146 electoral votes that are Safe for Obama.

WA/11 10.2 - 10.9
OR/7 8.3 - 9.7

There are 2 states with 18 electoral votes that are Likely for Obama. Combined with the first group, Obama begins with a core of 164 electoral votes and needs 106 more to win the presidency.

ME/4* … 6.7 - 10.3 (*Maine awards its votes by district, but Obama leads in all 3)
CT/7 … 5.9 - 8.0
IA/7 … 5.5 - 6.7
NV/5 … 4.8 (BO) - 0.9 (JM)
MN/10 … 4.6 - 9.2
MI/17 … 3.8 (BO) - 1.5 (JM)

There are 6 states with 50 electoral votes that are Leaning for Obama. Holding on to these gives Obama 215 electoral votes, just 55 shy of winning. This includes NV, which usually votes Republican.

NJ/15 … 3.3 - 7.7
PA/21 … 2.8 - 3.0
OH/20 … 2.7 - 0.0
CO/9 … 2.6 - 3.1
WI/10 … 2.0 - 2.8
NH/4 … 0.8 - 1.0

NM/5 … 0.7 - 2.0
VA/13 … 3.0 - 2.1

There are 6 states below with 52 electoral votes that, combined with the 3 groups immediately above, provide a total of 20 swing states where most of the campaigning will take place through September, and longer should they remain this competitive. In this group below are two historic bellwether states, WV and MO, where the voters have correctly picked the next president all but once or twice going back a century. The 6 below currently Lean to McCain.

FL/27 … 3.7 - 6.0
WV/5 … 3.8 - 6.4
AK/3 … 4.6 - 6.6
ND/3 … 5.8 - 4.3
MT/3 … 6.3 - 7.0
MO/11 … 6.5 - 3.7

There are 7 states below with 94 electoral votes that, combined with the bottom group provide McCain a core of 175 electoral votes. He’d need 95 more to win the presidency. This group of 7 is Likely for McCain.

SD/3 … 7.5 - 8.4
NC/15 … 7.7 - 5.8
IN/11 … 8.5 - 3.1
GA/15 … 8.7 - 11.7
TX/34 … 9.8 - 11.6
AZ/10 … 9.8 - 12.5
KS/6 … 10.0 - 13.0

There are 12 states below with 81 electoral votes that are Safe for McCain.

LA/9 … 11.2 - 12.0
SC/8 … 12.2 - 10.6
NE/5* … 12.6 - 14.9
AR/6 … 16.2 - 20.5
TN/11 … 16.5 - 18.4
KY/8 … 18.9 - 24.7
MS/6 … 22.6 - 13.6
ID/4 … 24.1 - 22.1
AL/9 … 24.2 - 24.4
OK/7 … 24.9 - 28.4
WY/3 … 26.5 - 19.4
UT/5 … 29.7 - 30.3

Most of the comparisons made in the primaries by Clinton about her electability obscured the fact that Obama performed better in the West, while she performed better in the South. The latter point is entirely consistent with the South’s voting since the major Civil Rights bills were passed in the mid-Sixties. Clinton, because she lived in Arkansas for a number of years, would have joined her husband and Carter in winning several Southern states. That regionalism bias didn’t pan out for Al Gore (though he technically won Florida’s popular vote), but that may have been because he spent most of his life living in DC, had a minimal Southern accent or because his campaign strategies failed him.

Whatever. But Obama could be the first Northern Democrat to win Southern electoral votes in 44 years, with VA, FL and possibly NC as the breakthrough states. GA could surprise, too, but only if Bob Barr draws significant voter support away from McCain.

Which does add one caveat to the current numbers compiled by Nate Silver. If Barr or Nader draw voters away from the two major party candidates, that could impact any of the 8 states within the margin of error. So far, though, neither has yet proven to be a factor.

The bottom line remains: the current numbers show that Obama remains very electable today as he’s winning the electoral vote against McCain. It’s additionally noteworthy that - like Maine - Nebraska awards its 5 votes by district and Obama has the edge in at least 2 of those districts now. So his current lead is 296 - 242, though 81 of those Obama votes remain within the statistical margin of error. That leaves him with a base of 215 against McCain’s base of 227 that similarly reside outside the margin of error.

The best campaigner will win.