Looks like another Superdelegate TKO

Email Print posted by calturner 05/09/2008 10:54:10 AM EST

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Well, well, well the superdelegates have turned the tide to Obama. Good for them. Everyone likes a winner.

This is gonna wrap it up...again

Time to reup and reload and go after McCain.


<h1>Obama takes triple crown: Most delegates, most popular vote and most superdelegates</h1>
By Beverly Davis
ABC News reports that Barack Obama has taken the lead in superdelegates. Obama has 267 to Clinton’s 265.

ABC’s Jake Tapper reports, “Senator Obama has two big endorsements — Congressman Payne, a former Clinton supporter, and Senator Defazio. That means he takes the lead with superdelegates 267 to Senator Clinton’s 265. For the first time, Barack Obama can now say he leads Hillary Clinton for the battle in the all important superdelegates and mounting odds against Clinton are taking a toll.”

Senator Obama has reached for and won (at least, temporarily and for the first time) the triple-crown – first in ‘earned’ delegates, first in ‘popular’ vote totals, and now, first in ‘superdelegate’ count – as two more superdelegates declared for him today.

This is the first time Sen. Obama has been in the superdelegate lead during this long and fractious Democratic primary.

The big news in pocketing both of these superdelegate votes is Rep. Payne who switched his vote from Clinton to Obama, calling Mrs. Clinton “a good friend” before jumping off the flat-lined Clinton campaign as Mr. Obama takes the lead in all campaign metrics; superdelegates, popular vote, and earned delegates.

Rep. Payne told the New Jersey Star-Ledger, “After careful consideration, I have reached the conclusion that Barack Obama can best bring about the change that our country so desperately wants and needs.”

“It’s now time for us to pull our party together. The quicker it’s over, the better we’ll be able to bring all of our forces together.”

Rep. Payne first endorsed Mrs. Clinton on January 1, 2007 and said he had “worked closely with both Hillary Clinton and President Clinton” and praised her for running a “very aggressive campaign.”

From the eastern coast to the west, the superdelegates are scrambling about the Obama train as Oregon’s Rep. Peter DeFazio committed to Barack Obama telling the Oregonian, “He represents our best chance of winning in November. We must not allow Senator McCain to continue the failures of the Bush foreign policy, war in Iraq and disastrous economic policies.”

Since Tuesday’s elections in South Carolina and Indiana, the movement has begun in earnest with superdelegates who will decide this race. Rep. Heath Shuler (NC) came out for Clinton and DNC superdelegates Jerry Meek from North Carolina and Inola Henry from California chose Obama.

Superdelegate Jennifer McClellan in Virginia recently switched to Obama, and yesterday, Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC) and Rep. Rick Larsen (D-WA) joined Obama’s superdelegate team. Today, Obama gained Rep. Payne and Rep. DeFazio.

Total superdelegate gain for Sen. Obama in the last three days is 7 and Clinton has a net loss of 1. This may be the long-awaited superdelegate ‘momentum’ that the Obama campaign has been waiting for.

This video is from ABC’s Good Morning America, broadcast May 9, 2008.

< Hillary's Loose Lips will sink ships! | Hilarious "Hillary" video >
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Looks like another Superdelegate TKO | 4 comments (4 topical, 0 hidden)
Use Multiple Sources (none / 0)
ABC is the ONLY medium showing this.  All others show Clinton still in the lead by anywhere from 5 to 15 superdelegates.  However, I see the exodus happening as these superdels are switching sides.  It's almost like  Hillary already agreed she was going to lose and said "Let me save face.  Just have the superdels gradually switch to Barack so it'll look like I fought to the bitter end."  Of course, her supporters sending nasty Obama-hating letters to the superdels is certainly not helping her case, either.

by TJD on 05/09/2008 01:11:05 PM EST

The New York Times has the story as well (none / 0)
This is odd that its dribbling out...WTF liberal media, hook a brotha up.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008 /05/10/us/politics/10clinto n.html?_r=1&partner=rss nyt&emc=rss&oref=sl ogin

Obama Leads in Superdelegates for First Time

By JOHN M. BRODER
The trump card Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton held in her faltering bid for president — her support among the superdelegates who can control the fate of the Democratic nomination — began slipping from her grasp on Friday as Senator Barack Obama moved into the lead on this front, with uncommitted delegates declaring their allegiance to him as others deserted her.

Mrs. Clinton publicly vowed to fight on for the nomination while campaigning on Friday in Oregon. But a new, more conciliatory tone crept into her stump speeches, as she shied away from the more spirited attacks on Mr. Obama that characterized her recent primary battles, instead engaging him more gently on the issues while aiming her fire on Senator John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican nominee.

The superdelegate movement toward Mr. Obama, of Illinois — giving him a net gain of six on Friday alone, with more expected — increased the pressure on Mrs. Clinton, of New York, to at least refrain from divisive remarks, particularly after her comments on Wednesday that lower-income white voters would not support Mr. Obama if he became the Democratic nominee. Aides now say she regrets the comments.

Democratic officials said what had been a trickle of superdelegates declaring for Mr. Obama was turning into a steady stream in the wake of Tuesday’s primaries, when Mrs. Clinton lost by 14 percentage points in North Carolina and narrowly won Indiana. Mr. Obama is just 166 delegates away from the 2,025 delegates needed to secure the nomination.

“I think the tipping point was reached around midnight last Tuesday,” said Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, predicting a “significant and steady movement toward Obama” by superdelegates.

Clinton advisers say attacks on Mr. Obama are no longer enough to change the momentum or the outcome of the nomination race. So continuing to attack him on the campaign trail, at this point, would probably inflict more long-term harm on Mrs. Clinton than on Mr. Obama, her advisers said.

Mr. Obama made his own peace offering to the Clinton camp, albeit a tactical one, suggesting he would be open to helping her retire her campaign debt. “I’d want to have a broad-ranging discussion with Senator Clinton about how I could make her feel good about the process and have her on the team moving forward,” he said. “But as I said, it’s premature right now. She’s still actively running, and we’ve still got business to do right here in Oregon and in other states.”

The tonal change in Mrs. Clinton’s campaigning away from sharp engagement with Mr. Obama could reflect cold political calculation: with elements of the party now coalescing around him, her own political legacy may be at stake in the few weeks remaining before primary voting comes to a close on June 3.

“What Hillary does in the next month is important,” said Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, a House leader who has remained studiously neutral so far, in an interview on Friday at a New Yorker magazine event. “If she spends her time contrasting with Senator McCain, drawing distinctions that help the Democratic Party, that’s productive. If it’s done in another way, that’s not productive.”

Mr. Emanuel declared Mr. Obama the party’s “presumptive nominee,” but his aides emphasized he was merely saying the senator was the front-runner.

The pressure to resolve the nominating fight also heightened speculation about a Clinton-Obama ticket. Although Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama refuse to talk about such a possibility, it is increasingly in the interest of each candidate to avoid savaging the other on the chance they could run together.

Mr. Obama, asked at a meeting with voters in Beaverton, Ore., about the possibility of offering Mrs. Clinton the vice-presidential slot, said: “I have not won this nomination yet. I think it would be presumptuous of me to suggest that she’s going to be my running mate when we’re still actively running.”

Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, one of Mr. Obama’s most prominent supporters, dismissed talk of a ticket. “I don’t think it’s possible,” he told Al Hunt of Bloomberg Television.

At a children’s hospital in Portland on Friday, Mrs. Clinton did not refer to Mr. Obama by name but drew a sharp contrast between her plan for universal health care and Mr. Obama’s less inclusive plan: “How can anyone run for Democratic nominee for president and not have a universal health care plan? This is a huge, huge difference and one I feel passionately about.”

But it was nothing Mr. Obama had not heard before and was relatively gentle, at least in comparison with her pointed attacks on the stump and on the airwaves in the most recent primaries, in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Indiana, where she taunted her rival about his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., and Mr. Obama’s remarks about “bitter” small-town voters.

Bill Carrick, a longtime Democratic campaign consultant who is neutral but who has close ties to many in the Clinton inner circle, said, “She’s very, very sensitive to the position she’s in now.” He added: “Definitely as she campaigns in these upcoming states she will stress her commitment to the Democratic Party and the stakes in the fall. She’s clearly sending a message to those voters that it’s in their interest to support the party in the fall, whoever the nominee is.”

Publicly, Mrs. Clinton is signaling that she is in the fight to win. In her speeches and in personal pleas to undecided superdelegates, she argues that she has proved better than Mr. Obama at attracting support from Latinos, Roman Catholics and older and working-class voters, and is better equipped than he is to win the swing states in November.

“There is no margin for error,” she said on Thursday night at a fairground in Central Point, Ore. “We need to elect someone who understands how Washington works and is ready from Day 1.”

The Clinton campaign began running new television advertisements in West Virginia and Oregon that do not mention Mr. Obama. The West Virginia spot focuses on trade deals and special interests, while the Oregon one criticizes the Bush administration’s conduct of the Iraq war.

On Thursday, Mrs. Clinton affirmed her intent to fight for victories in the six Democratic primaries left. She tells her audiences, and herself, that the exercise strengthens party muscles.

“The more we compete in Democratic primaries,” she said at a rally at a Sioux Falls, S.D., airport hangar, “the stronger the Democratic Party will be.”

Reporting was contributed by Patrick Healy, Michael Luo, Megan Thee and Jeff Zeleny.

by calturner on 05/10/2008 12:36:40 AM EST

[ Parent ]
My take (none / 0)

TJD WROTE:

 

I see the exodus happening as these superdels are switching sides.  It's almost like  Hillary already agreed she was going to lose and said "Let me save face.  Just have the superdels gradually switch to Barack so it'll look like I fought to the bitter end."

 

I wonder what might be considered the best way to save face. Dropping out after WV, OR/KY, PR or the final conclusion?

There is something to be said for exiting after thumping victories in WV, KY or PR, but every day after May 6 involves the indignity of still running while everyone knows and says it's over.

I don't think she'd subject herself to that merely to save face, since the cleanest departure would have been on May 7.

I believe she's still not given up the hope of being the nominee. How else can you explain her stepping up her futile campaign to have MI and FL be counted as if they had been regular contests? In which other light can you see her race-baiting remark about "working, hard-working Americans, white Americans" (sic!) and her assertion Obama's support among that demographic is weakening?

Were it about saving face, then she'd limit herself to a Huckabeean positive campaign in these days. Clearly she is not doing so. Old habits of throwing the kitchen-sink apparently die hard... 

In doing so, I think she's only damaging her standing in the party. Wins in WV, KY and PR just aren't going to undo that damage. Simply not smart. 

It looks like she's living in an alternate world. Someone from her inner circle should shake her out of it. Chelsea and Bill clearly know it's over if you looked at their faces on May 6.

I think the inner circle must have met on May 7. Hence the cancelling of her morning show appearances. I really don't understand, however, to what conclusion they came as it hardly can have been about them going into face-saving mode considering her latest utterances (or is she THAT undisciplined???).

It's a mystery to me. It just doesn't make sense. I give up trying to understand this and refer to Rachel Maddow's quip about Hillary running a "post-rational" campaign... It's all so utterly irrational.

Or can you provide a convincing rationale for what's going on in the head of Clinton & Co?

by charlesf on 05/10/2008 06:23:27 AM EST

When she drops out (none / 0)
It seems that Hillary is following Huckabee's example, wait until your opponent gets the magic number then bow out, (or so I hope lest this drag on for another 2 months).

Right now Barack is 155 total delegates away from 2025, the number needed to clinch the nomination.

There are 217 pledged delegates left.

Let us assume, conservativly, that Barack picks up 2 supers/day from here on out. I am also assuming Barack gets 1/3 of WV vote on Tuesday.

So he gets 9 pledged from WV, and 10 supers from Monday-Friday.

That puts him at 136 needed on 5/16.

By the next friday he picks up 14 more supers and on 5/20 he gets 55% of Oregon, (again being conservative) and 1/3 of KY.

So he picks up 28 pledged in OR, 16 in KY, 14 supers that week.

So by the end of 5/23 Barack will be 78 delegates away from clinching it.

Now the PR primary is held on Sunday, 6/1, 9 days after 5/23, so Obama will then have picked up an additional 18 supers, leaving him just 60 delegates short of the nomination by the time PR votes.

Now PR has 66 pledged delegates and I will be kind to Clinton and give her a 20% win there and round down, so Obama picks up just 26 pledged delegates there.

So after PR votes Obama is now 34 delegates away.

He picks up another 4 on Monday and Tuesday, (tuesday 6/3 being the last 2 primaries) putting him 30 delegates away.

Now MT has 16 pledged and 15 from SD.

These are going to be Barack blowouts, so I'll give him 2-1 ratios there then round down.

So he picks up 20 pledged delegates in those two states.

The primaries are now finished with Barack 10 super delegates away from the nomination.

Assuming the conservative figure of 2 supers/day for Obama then Obama will clinch the nomination on Sunday, June 8, 2008.

Hillary will then drop out the next day, or should.

Of course, she could bitch that the real "magic number" is 2200 or whatever it is counting MI and FL.

Even so, Clinton's pledged delegate lead over Barack counting FL and giving clinton 55% of MI is only 60 or so.

So if Barack wanted to be magnanimous, he could agree to count MI and FL and pretty soon he would be at the new magic number anyway.

Then Clinton would argue that, "supers can always change their minds" and still go till the convention.

The point being that this will surely last till the end of may, (the flood of supers should continue at 3-4/day and will accelerate once Obama has reached a majority of pledged delegates on 5/20)

Once he reaches the magic number of 2025, it will increase yet more until all the pledged delegates have decided.

By the way, this week 22 supers announced, 20 for Barack, or 91%.

Once he gets the majority of pledged delegates that number will probably increase to 95% and once he has the magic number of 2025 I would guess it will be 99%, (in other words once he gets to 2025 total delegates, Clinton will gain only 1 super at best).

So basically I am predicting the flood of supers will be so great that Barack will, by mid June get 2200 or whatever the "real" magic number is, counting MI and FL.

At that point Clinton staying in would be a joke.



by adamg on 05/11/2008 02:54:59 PM EST

Looks like another Superdelegate TKO | 4 comments (4 topical, 0 hidden)
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