Barack Obama has won a majority of pledged delegates. By the measure carefully set out by his campaign over the course of months — “this is a race for delegates” — they’ve won.

The real question is whether this metric of popular support gives the remaining super delegates — elected officals mostly — the “the people have spoken” political cover they’ve been waiting for to crawl out of the woodwork and onto Obama’s bandwagon.

The campaign soft-pedaled talk of victory in Obama’s victory speech tonight.

But I’ll be surprised if there isn’t a small avalanche of supers who commit tomorrow, helping to push this thing toward a merciful end.

Obama’s speech, delivered in the place where it all began, Iowa: