By Al Kamen
Friday, February 22, 2008; A21

Let's face it. It's over. Teamsters President James P. Hoffa may have provided the last bit of muscle Wednesday with his union's endorsement of Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.). Barring a serious meltdown in the debates -- or a sensational revelation -- Obama will be the Democratic presidential nominee this fall.

The punditry agrees that a victory for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) is at best improbable at this point. Ever-helpful Bill Clinton says that if Hillary doesn't win Texas and Ohio, she's toast. Our most recent poll shows a virtual tie in Texas and Clinton with a seven-point lead in Ohio.

Problem is, looking at the numbers, Clinton has to win both of them big. Obama has a lead of 150 elected or "pledged" delegates, according to NBC's calculation (The Washington Post uses a different formula to count). Clinton needs to win 58 percent of all remaining pledged delegates simply to get her lead back, NBC political director Chuck Todd notes. But that's hypothetical. The reality is worse.

If Obama wins the remaining states he's favored in, such as Vermont, Mississippi, North Carolina and Oregon, then Clinton will need to win 65 percent of the vote in places such as Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania, Todd said.

Most observers are beginning to focus on the numbers of elected, or pledged, delegates because they've concluded that those are almost sure to be the only ones who will matter -- unless Clinton can persuade the superdelegates at the nominating convention to overrule the voters and destroy the Democratic Party once and for all.

By the way, Obama holds a lead of nearly 1 million votes -- that's 1 million-- in the popular vote, according to the Web site Real Clear Politics. Of course, that doesn't really count -- ask Al Gore-- but it's worth noting. If you throw in Florida and even Michigan -- where his name wasn't on the ballot -- Obama still leads by 300,000 votes.

So it's time for the In the Loop Obama Veep contest to guess who Obama will pick as his running mate. First 10 entrants who guess correctly will win a coveted navy blue "In the Loop" T-shirt. Winners will be announced shortly after Obama decides. One entry per person, please.

Send your pick to obamaveep@washpost.com. Deadline is midnight Wednesday. (Obama, his aides and anyone with a good excuse may, of course, enter on background.) To be eligible, you must include a cell, work or home telephone number.

Don't delay. (And don't worry: If Clinton's campaign somehow miraculously resuscitates, we'll do a Clinton veep contest.)

Reporters covering President Bush's trip to Africa are dropping like flies. The latest victim was Jon Ward of the Washington Times, who somehow ran through a plate-glass window at the Liberian executive mansion yesterday while trying to keep up with the president. Colleagues say he has cuts on his right hand but is in surprisingly good shape, our colleague Peter Baker reports.

Earlier in the trip, Reuters reporter Deborah Charles fell down at the start of an event in Kigali, Rwanda, and badly injured her hand.

Air Force Col. Richard Tubb, the White House physician, came to her rescue, as he did with any number of aides and reporters who suffered various maladies during the six-day Africa trip, which ended yesterday.

Tubb -- who also treated New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd's stomach flu during Bush's recent trip to the Middle East -- set Charles's hand and wrist in a soft cast so it wouldn't get worse before she returned home.

Bush noticed and signed the cast after a media event in Accra, Ghana. Then he invited Ghanaian President John Kufuor to sign it, too. Yesterday, Bush was at it again. After a photo opportunity, he asked Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf if she wanted to sign the cast, which she did.

Not many people boast a cast with signatures from three heads of state. "When you put it on eBay," Bush told Charles, "I won't expect a commission."

Sometimes it's hard to fill the house, even with someone as controversial as former attorney general Alberto R. Gonzales, who picked up a reported $30,000 to speak to the College Republicans at Washington University in St. Louis on Tuesday night.

In his 24-minute speech, Gonzales "repeatedly made references comparing himself and the Bush administration to the presidency of Abraham Lincoln," the student newspaper reported.

Gonzales noted that Lincoln was much criticized when he occupied the Oval Office but is now considered one of the greats. "In the pursuit of great causes, mistakes will be made," he said. "During my [time in the] arena serving the president, my face was marred by sweat, dust and blood."

"There is a difference between what you do and what people say you do. It's going to take years for the entire story to be told," he said. "If you worry about criticism, you end up paralyzed and do nothing."

Despite substantial controversy on campus -- and 200 protesters outside in orange prison jumpsuits -- only about 600 tickets of the 1,000 available were given away, the student paper reported.

Coulda been worse. Only about 40 students showed up last year to hear a speech by former British prime minister John Major.

So there was Janet Huckabee, wife of the former governor and Baptist minister, taking in a middleweight boxing title fight last weekend in Las Vegas and staying at the pride of Sin City, the Hooters Casino Hotel.

Huckabee, whose husband is still in the GOP race for president, told the San Francisco Chronicle that she was there to root for fellow Arkansan and friend Jermain Taylor. She said she never intended to stay at Hooters.

"I had a room at the MGM Grand," she said, but canceled because plans changed and "a friend had two rooms. . . . It was the only thing, quite frankly, that was available."

Besides, hubby Mike Huckabee was down in the warm and beautiful Cayman Islands that weekend, giving a speech because, as he said, "I need to make a living."

Taylor lost to Kelly Pavlik by a unanimous decision.

Subprime-mortgage billionaire and huge GOP contributor Roland Arnall, now our man in The Hague, is leaving his post as ambassador to the Netherlands on March 7.

Arnall, in a letter this week to President Bush, explained that he was leaving after only two years on the job because of his son's Hodgkin's lymphoma.

The prognosis two years ago was "positive and encouraging," Arnall wrote, but his son "has had a relapse and I must be by his side now, with our family, to see him through his battle and healthy again."