Denial is powerful. The extent to which the human mind can conjure up scenarios besides the one we don't want to see is impressive, the result of some weird psychological glitch that probably evolved as a way of allowing us to keep our sanity. I don't know; I'm not an evolutionary psychologist.

What I am is a dude who spends a lot of time looking at poll numbers, and particularly poll numbers related to the 2016 nomination contests. I am the author of various articles assessing the chances of Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Democratic iteration thereof; those articles come to the conclusion that Hillary Clinton is very, very likely to be the party's nominee. It's a simple function of math. Sanders needs to win a lot of states with a lot of delegates by a lot of points -- something that he's so far shown no ability to do. He needs to win about three-quarters of the remaining delegates. Unless deusemerges from the machina, he will not.

But that's me looking at things objectively. I suspect that Seth Abramson -- a University of New Hampshire English professor and author of "Bernie Sanders Is Currently Winning the Democratic Primary Race, and I’ll Prove It to You" -- is not considering the race from the same space.

Abramson's "proof" consists of the following argument. Actually, Bernie Sanders has more support from Democrats. It's just that no one knows who he is. So Hillary Clinton banks a lot of early votes. But then they hear about Sanders and prefer him, and that's why voting on Election Day favors Sanders. So, really, Sanders is preferred.

The only problem with this is all of the parts.