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| Home Front: Politix |
| Ten superdelegates who could decide the Dem race |
| 2008-03-26 |
| Jim Geraghty, National Review After Puerto Rico’s Democrats vote on June 7*, there will be extraordinary pressure on the remaining publicly undecided super-delegates to get off the fence and make their preferences known. The Democratic convention is not until the end of August, so there’s a potential for three more months of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama slugging it out, running negative ads, airing opposition research, jabbing each other in speeches, and driving up each others’ unfavorable ratings. There are several hundred super-delegates who have not publicly committed,. and even when you win the support of a super-delegate, you don’t always get to keep it. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia announced at the end of last month that because his district overwhelmingly supported Obama, he will vote for the Illinois senator if it comes to a floor fight (which looks extremely likely). And then, sometimes one of your super-delegates is forced to resign because of involvement with a prostitution ring. Some days, Hillary just can’t catch a break. But not all super-delegates are equally influential, and the Democrats could possibly avert that protracted summer fight if, after June 7, a group of the most prominent remaining undecided superdelegates jumped on one of the bandwagons. Perhaps the lowest point of the campaign for Hillary Clinton was the rumor just before the Ohio and Texas primaries that Obama had 50 super-delegates that were ready to endorse at the end of the week. Had the boast panned out, her campaign would have been instantly rendered a Sisyphian effort to keep the final score respectable. But Hillary won Texas, won Ohio by a significant margin, and won Rhode Island — and those 50 super-delegates never materialized. Each of the ten figures listed below has remained on the sidelines for a reason But sooner or later, they will have to decide, and a collective endorsement from several of them could create the impression that the fight is effectively over. . . . Click through and read the rest. *UPDATE: Puerto Rico has rescheduled its primary for June 1, meaning that the last Democratic primaries will be Montana and South Dakota, on June 3. Insert your own "last stand" joke here. |
| Posted by:Mike |