Jim Camden
Staff writer
February 13, 2008

List: Washington, Idaho superdelegates Related story: Obama focuses on economy after latest primary wins Election news: Profiles, headlines, polls, video clips and more

Most of Washington state’s 17 superdelegates to the Democratic convention have yet to announce who they will back for president, but the ones who have are an almost opposite image of last Saturday’s caucus results.

Caucus participants supported Barack Obama by about 2-to-1 over Hillary Clinton. But five of the state’s superdelegates are supporting Clinton while just three are supporting Obama.

On Tuesday, some superdelegates tried to calm fears that they would sway a close vote and override the grassroots choice of those who participated in local caucuses. That scenario could occur if neither Obama nor Clinton captures a majority of regular delegates by the time the states finish with their primaries or caucuses in June.

“I would ask everyone to calm down a little bit,” said U.S. Rep. Adam Smith, a superdelegate backing Obama. He’s urging the state’s undecided, or at least unannounced, superdelegates to hold off for a few months on stating their support.

U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, a superdelegate supporting Clinton, announced her endorsement before the caucuses “because I felt voters deserved to know where I stand.” But she believes the voters will select enough delegates through primaries and caucuses to give one candidate or the other the majority before the national convention starts in August.

A spokeswoman said Murray was urging everyone to let the process run its course. When asked how she would vote if neither Clinton nor Obama had enough delegate votes to secure the nomination, spokeswoman Alex Glass added: “We’re not going to get into hypotheticals.”

At issue is the question of the Democratic Party’s use of key members – some elected officials and some party leaders – to cast their ballot for a nominee along with delegates selected through the primary or caucus process. Regular delegates are bound to vote for the candidate to whom they are pledged on the first ballot at the national convention. Superdelegates are allowed to choose which candidate to support, and can switch their support at any time.

That system, which the Democratic Party has used in various forms since the 1970s, rankles some Obama supporters who contend the superdelegates should reflect the caucus or primary results. In an interview with Politico.com, an online political news site, Obama said Monday he thought it would be a problem if either he or Clinton won a majority of the delegates, and “that was somehow overturned by party insiders.”

The issue may be less of a concern in Idaho, where Obama won an overwhelming victory in that state’s county caucuses, and three of the four known superdelegates have endorsed him. State Chairman R. Keith Roark is uncommitted and a fifth superdelegate will be chosen by delegates to the state convention.

Idaho Party Vice Chairwoman Jeanne Buell of Worley said she feels she has an obligation to represent voters in Idaho in general, and in Kootenai County in particular, where about 79 percent of the caucus participants supported Obama. She also promised to endorse the first Democratic candidate who would come to Idaho and campaign, and that was Obama, she said.

Even if Clinton had won the caucuses, she’d back Obama because “I made that commitment.”

In Washington, Clinton has the support of most superdelegates who have announced who they back, even though Obama was the clear favorite among caucus participants.

Smith notes, however, that the majority of Washington’s superdelegates are uncommitted, so the final tally could wind up close to the caucus results.

It would look bad for the superdelegates to decide the election by voting in a far different ratio than the public, Smith said. But he doubts that would happen.

“I think it would interfere with the ability of our candidate to win in November,” he said. “These are not stupid people and they want to get a Democrat elected.”

Several of Washington’s superdelegates said they are going to wait for the primaries and caucuses to play out before deciding who to support. Although he’s a superdelegate, U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen said he’s no fan of the system; he isn’t even planning on going to the national convention in Denver unless the votes of the superdelegates are needed to select the nominee.

He said he doesn’t know yet who he’ll support, and is waiting to see the results of all of the caucuses and primaries – including Washington’s Feb. 19 primary, which has no effect on selecting regular delegates.

“We do need to let the grass roots decide, but we need to let them go through the process,” Larsen said.

Washington superdelegates

Endorsing Sen. Hillary Clinton

Sen. Patty Murray

Sen. Maria Cantwell

Rep. Norm Dicks

Rep. Jay Inslee

King County Executive Ron Simms

Endorsing Barack Obama

Gov. Chris Gregoire

Rep. Adam Smith

National Committeewoman Pat Notter

Uncommitted

Former House Speaker Tom Foley *

Rep. Brian Baird

Rep. Rick Larsen

Rep. Jim McDermott

State Chairman Dwight Pelz

State Vice Chairwoman Eileen Macoll

National Committeeman David MacDonald

National Committeeman Ed Cote

National Committeewoman Sharon Mast

Idaho’s superdelegates

Endorsing Obama

State Chairwoman Jeanne Buell

National Committeeman Grant Burgoyne

National Committeewoman Gail Bray

Uncommitted

State Chairman R. Keith Roark

Superdelegate to be chosen at the state convention

* Some lists have Foley, who served as ambassador to Japan during the Clinton Administration, as a Clinton superdelegate, but he hasn’t made a public endorsement.

February 13, 2008

By JOHN M. BRODER and DALIA SUSSMAN

WASHINGTON — Senator Barack Obama rolled to victory by large margins in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia on Tuesday, extending his winning streak over Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to eight Democratic nominating contests.

The outcome provided him his first chance to assert that the Democratic race, which had seemed to be heading into a protracted standoff, is beginning to break in his direction. And it left Mrs. Clinton facing weeks in which she has few opportunities for the kind of victory that would alter the race in her favor after a string of defeats notable not just for their number but also their magnitude.

In Tuesday’s contests, Mr. Obama showed impressive strength among not only the groups that have backed him in earlier contests — blacks, younger voters, the affluent and self-described independents — but also among older voters, women and lower-income people, the core of Mrs. Clinton’s support up to now, according to exit polls. Mr. Obama also won majorities of white men and Hispanic voters in Virginia, though not in Maryland.

With almost all precincts reporting, Mr. Obama won 75 percent of the vote in the District of Columbia and 64 percent in Virginia. He had 60 percent of the vote in Maryland with results from 67 percent of the precincts.

On the Republican side, Senator John McCain won in Virginia over Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, virtually eliminating any threat that Mr. Huckabee might have posed to Mr. McCain’s status as his party’s all but certain nominee.

Mr. Huckabee got a boost from conservative and evangelical Christian voters in the state, but not enough to overcome support among moderates and nonevangelical Christians for Mr. McCain, who won 50 percent of the vote. Mr. McCain also prevailed in the District of Columbia, with 68 percent of the vote, and in Maryland, where he had 55 percent of the vote with 67 percent of the precincts reporting.

He said of Mr. Huckabee, “He certainly keeps things interesting — maybe a little too interesting at times tonight, I must confess.”

Mr. McCain turned his attention to attacks on his Democratic opponents, saying they “promise a new approach to governing but offer only the policies of a political orthodoxy that insists the solution to government’s failures is to simply make it bigger.”

In all, 168 pledged delegates were at stake for the Democrats and 116 for the Republicans. The Democrats will divide delegates proportionally to the candidates’ vote statewide and at the Congressional level while the Republican races are winner-take-all.

Mr. Obama’s victories gave him a lead over Mrs. Clinton among pledged delegates, according to preliminary counts by the Obama campaign and some news organizations. Obama aides calculate that he also leads in delegate counts that include so-called superdelegates, the party officers and elected officials who control 20 percent of the total delegates to the Democratic convention.

Mrs. Clinton’s campaign has suffered in recent weeks from overspending and internal upheaval, including the demotion of the campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, late last week and the resignation Tuesday of the deputy campaign manager, Mike Henry.

Mr. Obama, looking ahead to the next contest, was in Madison, Wis., when the results came in. In remarks to a boisterous rally, he did not mention Mrs. Clinton by name. But over loud applause he declared: “We also know that at this moment the cynics can no longer say our hope is false. We have now won east and west, north and south, and across the heartland of this country we love.”

Mrs. Clinton essentially conceded the three contests Tuesday morning by leaving Washington to campaign in Texas. She scheduled four days of appearances in Wisconsin, which holds its primary next Tuesday, but where Mr. Obama already has a significant ground operation and is spending heavily on advertising. Hawaii, where Mr. Obama largely grew up, also holds its nominating caucuses next Tuesday. But the Clinton campaign’s major efforts will be in Texas and Ohio, which vote on March 4. Rhode Island and Vermont also hold primaries that day.

Mrs. Clinton’s advisers say she will focus on winning over voters in Ohio and Texas to halt Mr. Obama’s growing momentum and to try to stay close in the count of pledged delegates. The Clinton campaign hopes that Ohio, with large numbers of lower-income and older voters, and Texas, with a large Latino electorate, will serve as a seawall against the Obama surge. The Clinton campaign is also looking to Pennsylvania, which votes on April 22, to provide another big-state victory and to stay competitive in the delegate chase.

“We are going to sweep across Texas in the next three weeks bringing our message about what we need in America, the kind of president we need on Day One to be commander in chief and turn the economy around,” Mrs. Clinton said at a rally in El Paso on Tuesday night, making no reference to her losses back East. “I’m tested. I’m ready. Let’s make it happen.”

But in the meantime, Mr. Obama will have a chance to begin convincing his party that his series of convincing wins in the last week represents a turning point in the campaign and that now is the time for Democrats to begin rallying around him as the strongest candidate to take back the White House.

Turnout was brisk in all three jurisdictions, with long lines at polling stations but few serious problems reported. Bill O’Field, spokesman for the District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics said that turnout had surpassed previous primaries, with some precincts ran out of paper ballots, but that voting was never halted because the stations had electronic voting machines as well.

In Maryland, polls stayed open an extra 90 minutes, until 9:30 p.m., because of bad road conditions caused by sleet and freezing rain.

Three in 10 voters in Tuesday’s Republican primary in Virginia described themselves as very conservative, and two-thirds of them supported Mr. Huckabee. And 6 in 10 evangelical Christians, who accounted for nearly half of Republican voters here, backed Mr. Huckabee.

Mr. McCain, for his part, had an edge among voters who said they were “somewhat” conservative, as well as broad support among moderates and non-evangelical Christians.

But the exit poll further underscored some of Mr. McCain’s potential vulnerabilities among conservatives going forward. Half of all Republican voters in Virginia said his positions on the issues were not conservative enough. And while 7 in 10 conservative voters said they would be satisfied if Mr. McCain wins the nomination, fewer than 4 in 10 of them would be “very” satisfied.

Mr. Obama’s strength in Virginia and Maryland crossed a range of demographic groups, according to exit polls conducted by Edison/Mitofsky for the National Election Pool. He received support from voters across all income and education levels, as well as across political ideologies, from those who described themselves as liberal, moderate and conservative Democrats. And independents, who were allowed to vote in Virginia’s Democratic primary and accounted for 2 in 10 voters there, supported Mr. Obama two to one over Mrs. Clinton.

Mrs. Clinton received the support of a majority of white women voting in Virginia and Maryland, but Mr. Obama countered with overwhelming support among black voters, men and women alike. Among white men, Mr. Obama won a majority in Virginia and ran close to Mrs. Clinton in Maryland.

More than 6 in 10 men in both states supported Mr. Obama, as did a majority of women, big changes from numbers in earlier primaries.

Michael Cooper contributed reporting from Arlington, Va.; Patrick Healy from El Paso; and Jeff Zeleny from Madison, Wis.

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company