IT'S OVER

From the AP:

Barack Obama effectively clinched the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday after a grueling marathon, based on an Associated Press tally of convention delegates, becoming the first black candidate ever to lead his party into a fall campaign for the White House.

Campaigning on an insistent call for change, Obama outlasted former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in a historic race that sparked record turnout in primary after primary, yet exposed deep racial and gender divisions within the party.

The tally was based on public declarations from delegates as well as from another 15 who have confirmed their intentions to the AP. It also included 11 delegates Obama was guaranteed as long as he gained 30 percent of the vote in South Dakota and Montana later in the day. It takes 2,118 delegates to clinch the nomination.

This is from the Clinton camp:

Hillary Rodham Clinton will concede Tuesday night that Barack Obama has the delegates to secure the Democratic nomination, campaign officials said, effectively ending her bid to be the nation's first female president.

Obama is 40 delegates shy of clinching the nomination, but he is widely expected to make up the difference Tuesday with superdelegate support and votes in South Dakota and Montana. Once he reaches the magic number of 2,118, Clinton will acknowledge that he has secured the necessary delegates to be the nominee.

However (and there always seems to be a "however" these days):

The former first lady will stop short of formally suspending or ending her race in her speech in New York City.

And later:

The advisers said Clinton has made a strategic decision to not formally end her campaign, giving her leverage to negotiate with Obama on various matters including a possible vice presidential nomination for her. She also wants to press him on issues he should focus on in the fall, such as health care.

Then there's this from Terry McAuliffe. He was on the Today show this morning and TPMCafe is reporting that this exchange occurred:

QUESTION: If Barack Obama reaches that number today or tomorrow do you believe that Sen. Clinton is prepared to concede?

McAULIFFE: Yeah, I think that if Sen. Obama gets the numbers, I think Hillary Clinton will congratulate him, and call him the nominee.

If all this is true, the first thing I have to do is to go buy Maria a beer.

UPDATE: Or is it. I just found this at CNN:

Sen. Hillary Clinton's is "absolutely not" prepared to concede the race for the Democratic presidential nomination to Sen. Barack Obama, her campaign chairman said.

Terry McAuliffe rejected as "100 percent" incorrect an Associated Press report that Clinton is preparing to acknowledge that Obama has the delegates to win the nomination Tuesday night as the five-month Democratic primary process comes to a close.

Obama "doesn't have the numbers today, and until someone has the numbers the race goes on," McAuliffe told CNN.

We'll see what happens when he has the numbers.