Obama overcomes the once 100 (or so) gap in Superdelegates.

[huevonkiller]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Obama Overtakes Clinton in Race for Superdelegates

May 11 (Bloomberg) -- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama won endorsements from five superdelegates yesterday and one today, erasing rival Hillary Clinton's long-held lead in backing from party officials and lawmakers.
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Obama now leads Clinton in the popular vote and the number of pledged delegates and superdelegates who will decide the nominee at the party's convention in August.

Clinton has seen her superdelegate advantage steadily erode since the nominating contests began Jan. 3, when Obama won the Iowa caucus. At that time, Clinton had more than twice as many superdelegates as Obama. With Obama's latest endorsements, he has 277 superdelegates to Clinton's 274.5, according to a Bloomberg tally based on lists and public statements from both campaigns.

``It's a crucial psychological milestone,'' said Anthony Corrado, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington who specializes in elections. ``From the very beginning, Senator Clinton has held the superdelegate lead and it had been widely expected that would be her ace in the hole.''

With six contests left to allocate 217 pledged delegates, neither candidate can claim the nomination without superdelegate support.

Clinton, a New York senator, has been trying to persuade superdelegates that she would be the strongest candidate against presumptive Republican nominee John McCain in the November general election. Now that Obama has overtaken her, many of the remaining undeclared superdelegates -- a little more than 200 of them -- are likely to follow suit and back the Illinois senator, analysts said.

In Line

``No one wants to be last in line,'' said Jennifer Duffy, editor of the non-partisan Cook Political Report in Washington. ``What today is a trickle will likely turn into a steady stream of superdelegates getting behind Obama.''

The latest endorsements for Obama mostly serve to ``reinforce the obvious,'' Duffy said.

Among the superdelegates who declared support for Obama yesterday was Kevin Rodriquez of the U.S. Virgin Islands, who previously backed Clinton. Obama's campaign also announced endorsements from superdelegates Carole Burke of the Virgin Islands, Kristi Cumming of Utah and Representative Harry Mitchell of Arizona.

The Associated Press reported that Ohio Democrats selected Obama supporter Dave Regan as a superdelegate. Today the Obama campaign announced that California superdelegate Crystal Strait pledged to vote for Obama.

Clinton added superdelegate Arthur Powell from Massachusetts.

Pledged Delegates

Obama leads Clinton among the pledged delegates won in caucuses and primaries 1,588.5 to 1425.5, according to an unofficial AP tally. It takes 2,025 to win the nomination.

At the start of the nominating contests in January, Obama had just 63 superdelegates to Clinton's 169, according to AP. Since the March 4 round of elections, Obama has gotten more than three times as many superdelegate endorsements as Clinton.

The 795 superdelegates aren't bound by the results of primaries and caucuses and will end up deciding the nomination. The figures don't include Michigan and Florida because those states were stripped of their votes by the national party organization for holding early primaries.

Clinton won the primaries in both states after the candidates agreed not to campaign in Michigan and Florida, and Obama's name wasn't on the ballot in Michigan.

Still Campaigning

Clinton is vowing to continue her campaign through the last contests on June 3 even as some Democrats have called for her to withdraw.

``The voters are going to decide this,'' Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson said on ``Fox News Sunday'' this morning. ``There is no reason for her not to continue this process.''

Clinton won't consider the race over until ``one candidate gets to 2,209, which is the number of delegates needed with Florida and Michigan,'' Wolfson said. ``We believe Florida and Michigan ought to be counted.''

Also, Clinton expects to win the West Virginia primary this week, and her previous victories in Pennsylvania and Ohio have persuaded many superdelegates to delay a decision on whether to support her or Obama, Wolfson said.

Clinton left New York this morning to attend Sunday services at the First United Methodist Church in Huntington, West Virginia. She shared a second-row pew with her daughter Chelsea. After the service she spent more than 30 minutes greeting members of the congregation.

Later, during a speech in Grafton, West Virginia, Clinton quoted from supporters' letters, saying one wrote: ``It's not over until the lady in the pants says it is.''

Clinton's campaign has been running low on money. She confirmed this week that she loaned her campaign $6.4 million since April, bringing her personal investment in her bid this year to $11.4 million. Wolfson said today on Fox that the campaign is about $20 million in debt.

To contact the reporter on this story: Catherine Dodge in Washington, at Cdodge1@bloomberg.net ; Julianna Goldman in New York, at Jgoldman6@bloomberg.net</div>

http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/20080511.../aafqehuarhq4_1

Realclearpolitics has him at +4.

Happy Mothers' Day.

 

[Run BJM]

Forgive my lack of knowledge about politics but does this mean the democratic party is finally getting behind Obama? Seems like they're finally drawing a line in the sand and telling Hilary they gave her a ton of chances to get back into it. She hasn't really made any ground and there don't seem to be any indications that shes going to get a surge here when she couldn't before.

 

[huevonkiller]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Run BJM @ May 11 2008, 05:05 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Forgive my lack of knowledge about politics but does this mean the democratic party is finally getting behind Obama? Seems like they're finally drawing a line in the sand and telling Hilary they gave her a ton of chances to get back into it. She hasn't really made any ground and there don't seem to be any indications that shes going to get a surge here when she couldn't before.</div>

More or less the Supers were just scared of not seeming Neutral. They don't want to divide the party but now it is becoming more acceptable to support Obama.

Hillary supporters need to be slowly nurtured into the thought that she won't win the nomination, they're sore losers (kind of understandable though).

 

[Run BJM]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (huevonkiller @ May 11 2008, 05:10 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Run BJM @ May 11 2008, 05:05 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Forgive my lack of knowledge about politics but does this mean the democratic party is finally getting behind Obama? Seems like they're finally drawing a line in the sand and telling Hilary they gave her a ton of chances to get back into it. She hasn't really made any ground and there don't seem to be any indications that shes going to get a surge here when she couldn't before.</div>

More or less the Supers were just scared of not seeming Neutral. They don't want to divide the party but now it is becoming more acceptable to support Obama.

Hillary supporters need to be slowly nurtured into the thought that she won't win the nomination, they're sore losers (kind of understandable though).
</div>
Yeah, seems ridiculous how many months we've been hearing "Clintons do well as underdogs" or "Clintons make comebacks". Uhhhhh Bill Clinton has made some comebacks but why would that imply that Hilary would be able to as well? Its a lot easier for a guy like Bill who was relatively unknown when he began running for a presidential nomination. Hes got a good personality, likeable, somewhat balanced politically and the more people saw him the more support he got and the longer he stayed around the more support he got. With Hilary everyone knows who she is coming in. You either like her or you hate her. Theres not a lot of room for growth there IMO when you're that well known coming into the election and also that polarizing of a character. Shes not gonna be charming or wooing voters into voting for her.

In fact her only real strategy has been to try to convince people to not vote for Obama. Probably a good indicator of the strength of the candidate if they can't convince people to vote for them just based on their principles. In the new internet era, people aren't going to be scared into voting one way or the other like they were in the past. No one really gives a fuck anymore and I would argue that people are becoming more segregated into their groups and there is less of a patriotic camaraderie that used to be prevalent in the past in the U.S. People are much better informed and much less supportive of the government in general. You're not gonna get votes by threatening that Communists will take over if you don't elect Candidate A like you used to in the past.

 

[huevonkiller]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Run BJM @ May 11 2008, 05:19 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (huevonkiller @ May 11 2008, 05:10 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Run BJM @ May 11 2008, 05:05 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Forgive my lack of knowledge about politics but does this mean the democratic party is finally getting behind Obama? Seems like they're finally drawing a line in the sand and telling Hilary they gave her a ton of chances to get back into it. She hasn't really made any ground and there don't seem to be any indications that shes going to get a surge here when she couldn't before.</div>

More or less the Supers were just scared of not seeming Neutral. They don't want to divide the party but now it is becoming more acceptable to support Obama.

Hillary supporters need to be slowly nurtured into the thought that she won't win the nomination, they're sore losers (kind of understandable though).
</div>
Yeah, seems ridiculous how many months we've been hearing "Clintons do well as underdogs" or "Clintons make comebacks". Uhhhhh Bill Clinton has made some comebacks but why would that imply that Hilary would be able to as well? Its a lot easier for a guy like Bill who was relatively unknown when he began running for a presidential nomination. Hes got a good personality, likeable, somewhat balanced politically and the more people saw him the more support he got and the longer he stayed around the more support he got. With Hilary everyone knows who she is coming in. You either like her or you hate her. Theres not a lot of room for growth there IMO when you're that well known coming into the election and also that polarizing of a character. Shes not gonna be charming or wooing voters into voting for her.

In fact her only real strategy has been to try to convince people to not vote for Obama. Probably a good indicator of the strength of the candidate if they can't convince people to vote for them just based on their principles. In the new internet era, people aren't going to be scared into voting one way or the other like they were in the past. No one really gives a **** anymore and I would argue that people are becoming more segregated into their groups and there is less of a patriotic camaraderie that used to be prevalent in the past in the U.S. People are much better informed and much less supportive of the government in general. You're not gonna get votes by threatening that Communists will take over if you don't elect Candidate A like you used to in the past.
</div>

I hate how she tries to make people freak out.

Her 3 am Ad, and the other Fear Mongering commercial before the Penn primary was pretty classless as well.

 

[Mamba]

Save face Hillary, drop out.

I don't know how she can justify her campaign, anymore. She just poured $11 million into it, she's lost her lead in the super's, she' behind Barack in all polls. How can she justifiability make the argument that she is the more electable candidate over McCain, when she isn't even the more electable candidate over Obama?

 

[AEM]

If the 2000 election was defined by hanging chads, this one will be defined by superdelegates.

 

[huevonkiller]

His lead against Hillary continues to grow, it is up to 4.3 now.

Realclearpolitics now has Obama at +7 in the Supers, with an additional growing edge in general election polls coming out of Pennsylvania (5 percent).

His lead over McCain grew by 1.5 percent in about a day. He's up by 4.2 overall.