Kautzman's AP GO PO Blog

Stephen Ohlemacher
Associated Press
February 23, 2008

WASHINGTON — The Democratic superdelegates are starting to follow the voters — straight to Barack Obama.

In just the past two weeks, more than two dozen of them have climbed aboard his presidential campaign, according to a survey by The Associated Press. At the same time, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s are beginning to jump ship, abandoning her for Obama or deciding they now are undecided.

The result: He’s narrowing her once-commanding lead among these “superdelegates,” the Democratic office holders and party officials who automatically attend the national convention and can vote for whomever they choose.

As Obama has reeled off 11 straight primary victories, some of the superdelegates are having second — or third — thoughts about their public commitments.

Take John Perez, a Californian who first endorsed John Edwards and then backed Clinton. Now, he says, he is undecided.

“Given where the race is at right now, I think it’s very important for us to play a role around bringing the party together around the candidate that people have chosen, as opposed to advocating for our own choice,” he said in an interview.

Clinton still leads among superdelegates — 241 to 181, according to the AP survey. But her total is down two in the past two weeks, while Obama’s is up 25. Since the primaries started, at least three Clinton superdelegates have switched to Obama, including Rep. David Scott, of Georgia, who changed his endorsement after Obama won 80 percent of the primary vote in Scott’s district. At least two other Clinton backers have switched to undecided.

None of Obama’s have publicly strayed, according to the AP tally.

There are nearly 800 Democratic superdelegates, making them an important force in a nomination race this close. Both campaigns are furiously lobbying them.

“Holy buckets!” exclaimed Audra Ostergard, of Nebraska. “Michelle Obama and I are playing phone tag.”

Billi Gosh, a Vermont superdelegate who backs Clinton, got a phone call from the candidate herself this week.

“As superdelegates, we have the opportunity to change our mind, so she’s just connecting with me,” Gosh said. “I couldn’t believe she was able to fit in calls like that to her incredibly busy schedule.”

In Utah, two Clinton superdelegates said they continue to support the New York senator — for now.

“We’ll see what happens,” said Karen Hale. Likewise, fellow superdelegate Helen Langan said, “We’ll see.”

Other supporters are more steadfast.

“She’s still in the race, isn’t she? So I’m still supporting her,” said Belinda Biafore, a superdelegate from West Virginia.

Obama has piled up the most victories in primaries and caucuses, giving him the overall lead in delegates, 1,362 to 1,266.5. Clinton’s half delegate came from the global primary sponsored by the Democrats Abroad.

It will take 2,025 delegates to secure the nomination at this summer’s national convention in Denver. If Clinton and Obama continue to split delegates in elections, neither will reach the mark without support from the superdelegates.

That has the campaigns fighting over the proper role for superdelegates, who can support any candidate they want. Obama argues it would be unfair for them to go against the outcome of the primaries and caucuses.

“I think it is important, given how hard Senator Clinton and I have been working, that these primaries and caucuses count for something,” Obama said during Thursday night’s debate in Austin, Texas.

Clinton argues that superdelegates should exercise independent judgment.

“These are the rules that are followed, and you know, I think that it will sort itself out,” she said during the debate. “We will have a nominee, and we will have a unified Democratic Party, and we will go on to victory in November.”

Behind the scenes, things can get sticky.

David Cicilline, the mayor of Providence, R.I., indicated this week that his support for Clinton might be wavering after — he contended — members of her campaign urged him to cave to the demands of a local firefighters union ahead of her weekend appearance there. The firefighters, in a long-running contract dispute with Cicilline, have said they would disrupt any Clinton event the mayor attends. A Clinton spokeswoman said the campaign would never interfere in the mayor’s city decisions.

Obama has been helped by recent endorsements from several labor unions, including the Teamsters on Wednesday.

“He’s our guy,” said Sonny Nardi, an Ohio superdelegate and the president of Teamsters Local 416 in Cleveland.

The Democratic Party has named about 720 of its 795 superdelegates. The remainder will be chosen at state party conventions in the spring. AP reporters have interviewed 95 percent of the named delegates, with the most recent round of interviews taking place this week.

The superdelegates make up about a fifth of the overall delegates. As Democratic senators, both Clinton and Obama are superdelegates.

So is Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory, which is one reason his phone rings often.

He is a black mayor, and Obama has been winning about 90 percent of black votes. His state has a March 4 primary with 141 delegates at stake. The Democratic governor, Ted Strickland, is stumping hard for Clinton — and perhaps a spot on the national ticket.

A phone call from former President Clinton interrupted Mallory’s dinner on a recent Saturday.

“I continue to get calls from mayors, congresspeople, governors, urging me one way or another,” said Mallory, who is still mulling his decision. “The celebrities will be next. I guess Oprah will call me.”

‘Supers’ owe party a conscientious vote

John Farmer
Newark Star-Ledger
February 23, 2008

If the media (hateful word) are to be believed, the Democratic Party’s 796 superdelegates are tied up in knots over whom to support for the presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama, the front-runner, or Sen. Hillary Clinton, the fast-fading former front-runner.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Being named a superdelegate was deemed an honor; it got you to the Democratic convention without the indignity of having to risk repudiation by pledging in advance to a candidate who might get shellacked.

It was freebie – a plum piece of party patronage.

Everyone wanted to be a superdelegate in years past. But those seats are reserved for the elected elite (governors, senators, representatives, mayors et al.) and party bigwigs (national and state chairmen and chairwomen). This year, however, some “supers” may feel a bit like Abraham Lincoln’s description of the fellow who was tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail. “If it weren’t for the honor of the thing, he’d just as soon have walked,” said Honest Abe.

This year this safest, most sought-after of political plums comes with some risk: the real possibility that the “supers” will be forced at the national convention in August to decide who’s to be the nominee – Obama or Clinton.

Whom to anger and alienate, in other words: women, the Emily’s List and Code Pink crowd and the Clinton government in exile by backing Obama, or African-Americans, the thousands of new party shock troops on the college campuses and liberal reformers in general by opting for Clinton?

It could be a critical consideration in how some “supers” vote because many will have to face the voters themselves in their states or congressional districts this fall.

Now about those “supers” and how they came about. The whole notion of superdelegates – with power to override the decision of millions of Democratic votes cast in state primaries and caucuses – seems out of step with a party so politically correct that it insists convention seats be divided close to equally between men and women. The idea of superdelegates seems, well, undemocratic.

And it is, actually. But the “supers” came into being to remedy what party elders perceived as democracy run amok in the nominating process, particularly at the 1972 convention. That year, liberals, in an orgy of excess, expelled the party’s strongest local leader, Mayor Richard J. Daily of Chicago; radically rewrote the party platform; and carried the convention into the wee hours of the morning, losing a national television audience in the process and crippling their already weak nominee, George McGovern.

The nominating process, the party’s Washington-based establishment decided, needed adult supervision – namely a contingent of sage elders with the power to undo any damage a runaway convention like the 1972 gathering might do.

It’s not the first time party elders have taken things into their own hands to save a Democratic convention from its own bad judgment. In 1952, Sen. Estes Kefauver dominated the Democratic primaries, defeating even President Harry Truman. He was the people’s choice. But rather than let the prize go to the erratic Kefauver, a coalition of Democratic big-city bosses used their muscle to give the nomination to Illinois Gov. Adlai Stevenson {AKA – “I Love The Gov”}.

Stevenson lost. No Democrat had a chance that year. But Stevenson vindicated the bosses by mounting one of the most eloquent and farsighted campaigns ever run, as evident in collections of his speeches that year.

The superdelegates will face a much tougher choice this year if it all comes down to their decision. Obama and Clinton are credible candidates, unlike Kefauver. But the decision will be difficult because of the choice posed by Clinton and Obama – between race and gender and even generations and between one candidate offering a proven past and another offering an uncharted and different future.

What will guide the “supers” in any such decision? In the best of all worlds, they will heed the wisdom of Edmund Burke, the most eloquent Irish voice ever raised in the British Parliament in explaining to his Bristol district why he’d voted in the nation’s interest and not in theirs or even his own. What any elected representative owes his constituents, Burke said, is “his unbiased opinion, his enlightened conscience (and) these he ought not to sacrifice to you.”

What are the odds the “supers” will follow the Burkean model? Not good, is my guess. More likely they’ll do the smart, expedient thing and vote the way the folks back home voted. Why take a risk?

It’s like the wise guys say: The race isn’t always to the swift or the struggle to the strong. But that’s sure the way to bet it.