BUT, on the superdelegate thing, what exactly is the national popular vote as it stands right now? Is Obama or Hillary ahead?
The Wall Street Journal has alot of good info regarding the presidential race. Right now Clinton has a 256/187 lead on Obama from the superdelegates, largely comprised of Democratic National Commitee members and 81 Congressmen. However, many dels are already jumping ship though so sups may likely follow suit if Clinton doesn't win Texas and Ohio. There's also 274 undecided for her to worry about.
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/retro-delegateList0802.html
Got Your Superdelegates
Added Up? Count Again
Blogs Notwithstanding,
About Half These Voters
Remain Uncommitted
By JACKIE CALMES
February 22, 2008; Page A6
Liberal groups and bloggers have been sounding alarms that Democratic Party insiders -- the so-called superdelegates -- could tip the presidential nomination to Sen. Hillary Clinton behind closed doors. MoveOn.org and Democracy for America are advertising and even raising money on the issue. "Will party insiders overturn your vote?" DFA asks recipients.
But the superdelegates aren't party bosses of old, and they are as split as the voters have been.
About half these free agents remain determinedly uncommitted -- in hopes the voters will decide the nominee soon. Those few who lately have taken sides are tipping to Sen. Barack Obama.
Contrary to the conspiracy theorists warning of backroom deals against the will of voters, these superdelegates have committed to the Illinois senator because voters in primaries and caucuses have given him 10 straight victories, and a lead in the separate pledged delegates won as a result.
New York's Sen. Clinton still leads in superdelegates, having signed up scores of them last year while Sen. Obama still was introducing himself nationally. However, her recruitments have not only stalled as she has been losing, but a few supporters have jumped ship. That is despite the best efforts of her husband, former President Bill Clinton, who, as with his wife, has long ties to many of the superdelegates.
The controversy could be moot if Sen. Clinton doesn't win the Texas and Ohio contests March 4 -- which she has predicted she will do. Should Sen. Obama in fact win, he could become the presumptive nominee regardless of delegate counts, Democratic strategists agree. Superdelegates might well coalesce -- but for him, not for Sen. Clinton.
Bill Clinton, campaigning in Texas for his wife, was blunt about the stakes to a Beaumont audience Wednesday: "If she wins Texas and Ohio, I think she will be the nominee. If you don't deliver for her, I don't think she can be."
Party rules created superdelegates in 1982 as a potential check against an unelectable nominee from outside the mainstream. These individuals, who can vote as they choose, include all Democratic members of Congress, governors, Democratic National Committee representatives from each state, and a few VIPs, including former Presidents Clinton and Carter. The 795 superdelegates this year constitute a little less than 20% of the 4,048 total delegates who will meet at the August 25-28 convention in Denver.
Republicans don't have superdelegates, but each state's party chairman and two Republican National Committee members are automatic delegates. Separately, many politicians win regular delegate spots.
Superdelegates emerged as potential kingmakers after Super Tuesday on Feb. 5, when neither candidate scored a knockout by sweeping those 22 contests or the earlier ones. Sens. Clinton and Obama have roughly split the pledged delegates to date, thanks to party rules that require states and other jurisdictions to award delegates proportionate to each candidates' vote. Even losers don't go away empty-handed, except in a blow-out.
Clinton advisers openly predicted after Super Tuesday that Sen. Clinton was in for a rough patch through February. They underestimated Sen. Obama's big numbers -- his 57% to 36% win in Louisiana was his smallest percentage in the 10-contest streak -- and thus the momentum he consequently picked up. The triumphs have meant not only more pledged delegates, but superdelegates in turn.
When the nominating contests got under way in January, about a quarter of the Democratic superdelegates were believed to be committed; the Clinton campaign claimed about a 120-delegate lead. That margin is shrinking daily: Sen. Clinton counts 258 superdelegates, and the Obama campaign had "179 and climbing" yesterday morning, a spokesman said. By day's end, it had 183, plus four others who don't want to be named.
While tallies of the pledged delegates vary, given states' arcane selection processes, the Obama campaign said its candidate has 1,199 to Sen. Clinton's 1,040, for a 159-vote edge separate from the superdelegates. The Clinton campaign said its count is similar. Both sides also agree that, with the contests remaining up to Puerto Rico's on June 7, neither candidate can reach the 2,025 needed for nomination by pledged delegates alone.
So Sen. Clinton's campaign has been predicting for weeks that she will win given her advantage with superdelegates. Her campaign calls them "automatic delegates," in view of the pejorative meaning that "superdelegates" has acquired. "By the time we get into early June, we...expect her to be able to clinch the nomination," Clinton adviser Harold Ickes told reporters Wednesday.
In contrast, Sen. Obama told reporters late last week that "whoever has the most pledged delegates at the end of this contest should be the nominee and...superdelegates should ratify that decision by the voters."
Yet a superdelegate from someplace Sen. Clinton won may be more interested in ratifying the decision of local voters. In fact, the Obama campaign has made that argument as well, suggesting that super-delegates in states or congressional districts that Sen. Obama won should support him. But some Obama superdelegates are from places that Sen. Clinton carried.
Among the latest Clinton defectors is state Sen. Dana Redd in New Jersey, who this week cited Sen. Obama's winning streak. A few previously uncommitted delegates also have pledged to Sen. Obama in recent days, including DNC members Margaret Xifaras of Massachusetts, a state that Sen. Clinton won on Super Tuesday, and Jason Rae of Wisconsin yesterday, along with Wisconsin's Reps. Steve Kagen and Ron Kind.
The Wisconsin congressmen cited Sen. Obama's big win in their state's Democratic primary Tuesday and Mr. Rae, a college student, noted the senator's overwhelming support among the state's young people. In a statement, he said that Sen. Obama "has inspired a new generation of voters to get active and energized in the political process."
In her statement, Ms. Xifaras said that if Sen. Obama "had just said those words about change, it would not have been enough." But, she added, his campaign has had done well on the issues, fund-raising and "reaching out through community-based organizers rather than just the same old political establishment."
"The 'supers' are breaking quicker than melting snow," said Donna Brazile, campaign manager for Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign. Ms. Brazile, a DNC member who is an uncommitted superdelegate, has been widely quoted for threatening to quit her party if superdelegates "decide this election." But yesterday she said she remains confident they won't have to.
Tad Devine, a veteran strategist of past campaigns, who is neither a superdelegate nor otherwise committed to a candidate, said, "I've always felt that even though we call them party leaders, super-delegates are in fact followers" -- of the popular votes.
Yet the pro-Obama bloggers' imagery of superdelegates as establishment powerbrokers poised to cut a pro-Clinton deal has taken wider root. That caricature has been stoked by the comments from Sen. Obama and his campaign, even as he was successfully recruiting superdelegates.
South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Carol Fowler, herself an uncommitted superdelegate, decided to confront the issue. Saturday she began training for Democrats who want to be elected by party members to go to the convention as pledged delegates. When she referred to superdelegates, many of the 50 attendees scowled.
"I want you to think about this," she said she told them: If the state's two Democratic congressmen weren't superdelegates, they'd likely run for -- and win -- the delegate spots. "This whole system allows grassroots people to participate on equal footing with DNC members and members of Congress," she told them.
"Then they started nodding," she said. "That seemed to make sense."
