Continuing in this vein, Chait writes:

The notion that the superdelegates will decide the race implies that pledged delegates won't matter--like a sports event that goes to overtime. Obviously, though, the pledged-delegate count determines how many superdelegates each candidate needs.

I find this passage funny as well. To say a game was decided in overtime is not to say the regulation time of the game did not matter. Indeed how the "pledged delegate" "regulation game" has gone is precisely why you now have this "superdelegate overtime." Moreover, that is not even a proper analogy. The nomination "game" requires crossing a delegate threshold (2025 without FL and MI, and 2214 with Florida and Michigan) - there is not a game clock per se. Obama will not cross the threshold solely with pledged delegates (John Kerry, Al Gore and Bill Clinton did, to provide 3 examples.) To wit, in order to capture the nomination, Obama needs to capture a certain number of super delegates. Presumably, if Obama maintains a 100 or so pledged delegate lead, he will need about a hundred less than Clinton.

It is fine to believe that Obama has, beyond a shadow of all doubt, won the nomination. But it ill behooves someone who is ridiculing the supposed "mathematical illiteracy" of people to demonstrate such shocking ignorance and lack of understanding of the English language and, apparently, the nomination process. I submit Chait should stick to making his arguments, and not to making fun of people - he becomes too easy a target when he does.