At a town hall meeting in Warren, Michigan - the candidates first trip to the state since last summer - Barack Obama was asked how he’d do in Michigan since he sat out the state’s January 15th primary. With the Michigan delegation still up in the air, Obama noted, “Obviously because of the whole hoopla around when Michigan held its primary, my name was not on the ballot and we did not do campaigning here and I just want to remind everybody that wasn’t my choosing. that was, we were just, what we do is just - tell us what the rules are and then we play by the rules,” he said, eager to woo voters in a state that will be important this fall.

As for how the Democrats would fare, Obama mentioned yesterday’s Mississippi special election, in which Democrat Travis Childers pulled out a surprising victory. “Look, [the Republicans] just lost an election yesterday in the heart of Mississippi,” he said, describing the region as “hard core Republican.”

This is the same campaign during which Childers’ Republican opponent aired ads tying Childers to Obama during the height of his Jeremiah Wright woes. Obama observed, “I mean they were trying to do every trick in the book to try to scare folks in Mississippi and it didn’t work. And the reason it didn’t work is because the American people know we need a new direction in Washington. That’s why we’re gonna win Michigan, that’s why we’re gonna beat John McCain here in Michigan.”

The Obama camp says it netted more pledged delegates by winning yesterday’s Mississippi primary than Hillary Clinton got by winning the big contests in Texas and Ohio. The Obama campaign has downplayed Clinton’s wins in these so-called “big states” - stressing the path to the nomination comes down to simple math.

Obama has done well by handily winning in states like Georgia and Mississippi - and by remaining competitive in the big states that Clinton has won.  It’s a blueprint that has Obama up in the pledged delegate count - 1411 to Clinton’s 1250 (according to the Obama campaign).

But with 10 contests left and 566 pledged delegates to be awarded, no candidate can reach the 2,025 needed to secure the nomination, which would throw the nomination to the superdelegates.

Of course, Florida and Michigan’s contests have not been resolved by the DNC and their combined 313 pledged delegates are yet to be awarded. The Obama campaign has said it will not accept the results based on the January contest results, as Obama’s name was not on the ballot in Michigan, and he did not campaign in the Sunshine State.

Today Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said caucuses were an option as were new primaries, but cautioned the latter method would be expensive. He has “deep concerns” with a mail-in revote, saying “To try to put to something that took the state of Oregon 10 years to get comfortable with at the statewide level is problematic.”

So what’s the best option? “It seems that the easiest solution here would be some kind of fair seating of the delegations that is not reflective of this contest in January, that allows these states to participate in Denver, but does not advantage Sen Clinton unfairly,” Plouffe said. It’s unclear how this seating would be decided.

Just to be sure voters in Michigan and Florida don’t equate Clinton’s concern for the states’ delegates with making sure their voices are heard in this nomination process, Plouffe noted, “We do not think the Clinton campaign’s approach here is based on benevolence towards Florida and Michigan - it’s based on increasingly desperate, self serving stretching for whatever they think might help them secure the nomination.”

Pennsylvania is widely considered the next (and third) “Super Tuesday” coming up on April 22nd, but the Obama campaign today said Clinton will likely win the state. “They should win by a healthy margin, given where they start,” Plouffe said. “We will campaign hard there, we will try to get as many votes and delegates as we can, but our campaign will not be defined by Pennsylvania. We will be campaigning in all the rest of the states.”

Obama will campaign this weekend in Indiana, and will focus time and energy in North Carolina as well the other upcoming states, while the Clinton campaign focuses on Pennsylvania. Should the nomination come down to supedelegates, the Obama campaign will argue he is the candidate with more pledged delegates, more states, and more of the nation’s popular vote.