Let me highlight something from the Politico article:
Clinton’s top supporters, including her husband, have suggested in recent days that amassing more votes than Sen. Barack Obama, while it has no formal meaning, could offer a key rationale for laying claim to the nomination. The theory: Winning the popular vote might give party leaders known as superdelegates a reason to take the nomination away from Obama, who is virtually sure to earn more pledged delegates.
The assumption here is that superdelegates who have not yet endorsed Clinton are actually harboring a secret, unexpressed desire to overturn the outcome of the delegate-selection process and hand the nomination to her. These people are just waiting to be given a reason to do it.
The thing is: That's crazy. Hillary started out with a huge lead in superdelegates because she got a treasure trove of early endorsements. Guess why? Because her husband used to be President and party figures had every reason to offer her early endorsements. Since that time, all the superdelegate momentum's been toward Obama because, guess what, the people who didn't line up behind Clinton early are people who don't want Clinton to win! I know reality gets distorted in the midst of a campaign, but they're really deluded if they can't see that.
| 
Heads in the Sand
i'm probably going to simply give up on posting about this, but for an exceedingly smart lad, matthew, every so often, demonstrates a remarkable naivete.
the purpose of the rhetoric emananting out of the clinton camp is to keep the race alive in the hopes that something happens to swing it to them, not to provide carefully honed analytic gems that withstand scrutiny.
as for the people who didn't line up behind clinton early: perhaps they simply didn't subscribe to the inevitability theorem, instead believing, as so many of us did, that the democratic party had 3 able candidates so let's see what happens.
if they really didn't want clinton to win, the undecided superdelegates could settle the race right now, simply by announcing for obama. amazingly enough, they haven't done that either.
does that mean they don't want obama to win, either? (perhaps the remaining superdelegates are all john edwards fans, or maybe they want to band together and bring back kerry?)
i've noted before that i support obama on the grounds of opposing dynastic succession, but really: there is no data set that can prove, one way or the other, who will run a better race against john mccain. clinton remains in the race precisely because she - and millions of democrats - think she is the answer to that question.
the undecided superdelegates appear to be as uncertain as i on the matter; when they achieve certainty, we'll have a nominee. until then, drawing the conclusion that they don't support clinton because they haven't yet supported clinton is...well, i don't want to say it's deluded, because there's a reasonable chance that it's accurate, but at a minimum, it's overstated....
Posted by howard | March 21, 2008 4:38 PM