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Obama Closes the Superdelegate Gap?
Ben Smith of the Politico has some posts up today with major convention implications. He's put up a spreadsheet that Bloomberg News obtained, apparently an internal Obama campaign worksheet that attempts to project where the race is headed. It's of prurient interest, but most of its scenarios are fairly conservative, and there's not much news in it.
The big deal, though, is in a few boxes at the bottom. Obama's campaign lists the current superdelegate tally as 159-209. That's 40-50 more than any public tally I've seen. And it gets more interesting - Ben queried the Obama camp, and discovered that they're now claiming the backing of 170 superdelegates.
A word of caution. They haven't substantiated that with lists of names - as of this morning, only 113 endorsements had been publicly announced. And its perfectly plausible that Hillary has her own internal tally which also shows her doing better than the major media organizations project. But given that this spreadsheet, on the whole, is fairly conservative, and it does the Obama camp no good to delude itself as to how many delegates are going for Hillary, I'd say its prima facie evidence that Obama has finally closed the superdelegate gap. If he's really trailing by just 40, and his Super Tuesday projections hold up, then the overall gap is now in the single digits. And that would be huge news.
(And, for readers just joining me, I discussed this morning why the gap is at least four delegates smaller than any current count.)
Comments (6)
170 will not surprise me because Obama has won more congressional district (pledged delegate are distributed based on congressional districts) than Hillary during this primary. And in the red state districts he won it overwhelmingly. Because these superdelegates are mostly politicians, as such they have to listen to their constituents.
I believe that Obama won Rangel's congressional district. He is the staunchest Hillary supporter. If he does not play ball he will be gone next time around.
February 7, 2008 4:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fly, I love your posts! ♪
I also appreciate your linking from one to the next. ♪
These posts are among the least rancorous on this blog at the moment, while providing a great deal of useful analysis and speculation.
My guess is that many more people are reading them than commenting on them. So, I urge you to keep giving us these valuable insights.
Your faithful reader. ♪♪♪
February 7, 2008 4:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
agree with TP,
I scan for FlyOnTheWall posts.
There needs to be a better 'recommend' function. As the function is now, it is not surprising that once a post ends up in the recommended section, it never leaves.
February 7, 2008 11:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
ex-cd:
It wouldn't be surprising if he announced a flood of endorsements; what strikes me as odd is that the campaign is willing to claim 50-60 more supers than anyone else has managed to find, without telling us who they are. Obama's done something similar before - he husbanded his superdelegates before New Hampshire, and rolled them out day by day afterwards, to control the media narrative. That may be what's going on. Or they might be saving them up for one heck of a press conference. But it's odd.
One minor correction: The majority of superdelegates (four hundred something) are members of the DNC. Then there are a few hundred electeds, and the 76 UADs I referenced above.
TheraP:
Thanks for the fan mail - means a lot to me. I've actually just about decided to scale back these posts to every few days. It's too frustrating to put an hour or so into collecting information and compiling links, as I did with the delegate post this morning, and then watch it get subsumed beneath the tide of newer posts before anyone notices it's there. They've finally fixed the recommend link, which is something, but they still treat reader posts as a curiosity.
My most frustrating experience came on the eve of Super Tuesday, when one of the TPM Cafe posters, Linda Hirshman, made a series of posts riddled with factual errors. Josh called her out on it, as did I. But her post remained featured in the left-hand column and linked off the homepage, while reader posts that were both more thoughtful and more factual languished in the fine print on the right. I'd like a site where posts get treated according to the quality of the ideas they promote, not the resumes of their authors. And sadly, I'm afraid TPM isn't quite there yet.
February 7, 2008 5:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm an Obama supporter, but wanted to point out that Rangel will never ever lose his seat, no matter what he does.
February 7, 2008 5:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
ok, so as a poker player, how does one most effectively play the cards?
113/170 endorsements leaving 60 to play.
i think i would in general i would like to play 1/day, but hopefully i am getting more cards, and at that rate they won't all get in play. the question is do you play trump when there is some negative momentum (losing a state, or dodging slung mud), or do you play them to increase positive momentum (say after sweeping a few states)?
my guess is that one of the 'uber' endorsements will come and there will be a large number played shortly after.
February 7, 2008 11:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
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