Superdelegate Stalemate Shows No Sign of Easing

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: Superdelegate Stalemate Shows No Sign of Easing
By LARRY ROHTER and CARL HULSE
Published: April 26, 2008

Jeanne Lemire Dahlman, a Montana superdelegate and rancher, has declared her allegiance to Senator Barack Obama. But she said voters in her state, whose primary is June 3, are thrilled by the unresolved Democratic nominating fight, which gives them a potential voice in a nominating process that has usually bypassed them. “A part of me would like to wrap this up,” she acknowledged. “But I think Senator Clinton should continue, unless she tanks in Indiana.”

The Pennsylvania primary was supposed to help clarify the picture for the 795 Democratic superdelegates, but Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s strong victory there on Tuesday has in many ways complicated matters for them, furthering a stalemate that has deeply divided the party even as top Democrats called this week for them to make up their minds by June. The latest New York Times survey of superdelegates — the party leaders and elected officials who essentially have the power to determine the nominee — finds that Mrs. Clinton holds a 16-person edge that slices into Mr. Obama’s overall lead in delegates. And those 478 superdelegates who have declared their allegiances show no signs of switching sides as the primary calendar proceeds toward its June 3 ending....

***

The biggest well of superdelegates is in Congress. There, Democrats in the House and the Senate seemed resigned to the likelihood that the nominating contest would stretch on at least to June. They sought to play down the potential damage to the party of an extended nominating fight. And they emphasized the enthusiasm shown by voters and said they believed that Democrats fervently committed to one or the other candidate would rally to the eventual nominee once the contrast is shown between any Democrat and Senator John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican nominee.

Yet there was a clear sentiment that the rest of the Democratic campaign and the way it is resolved would be crucial. “The way the loser loses,” said Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, who is close to both candidates but has made no endorsement, “will determine whether the winner wins in November.”

The Democrats’ national chairman, Howard Dean, told The Financial Times in an article on Friday: “I think the race is going to come down to the perception in the last six or eight races of who the best opponent for McCain will be. I do not think in the long run it will come down to the popular vote or anything else.”...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/26/us/politics/26delegates.html?ref=todayspaper&pagewanted=all

[aquart]

1. IOW, half the country doesn't want to vote for a messiah.

We want to vote for a chief executive. Not a cult leader.

[Sinistrous]

2. Typical clintonite comment: vapid, inaccurate, and irrelevant.

[Rageneau]

3. Typical cultist comment -- kneejerk, bellicose, and unsubstantiated.

[Sinistrous]

4. Awww! Isn't that cute! Keep trying. Some day you might get good at it.