Seems to me that while they have the power, it was meant to be exercised only in the most extreme situations. This does not qualify (would McGovern have?).

He's predicting that the superdelegates will most likely use their judgement to back the pledged delegate leader, but because the rules allow them to vote for either candidate, that outcome is not guaranteed. He is also speculating that not backing the pledged delegate leader will have a more negative outcome for the party.

The mystery is that Josh Marshall is claiming to me that he is NOT saying that his quote should be interpreted to mean that the superdelgates should vote for the leader in pledged votes.

And I say he's not being honest.

Does this mean that he believes that superdelegates should vote for the pledged delegate leader even though the rules do not require them to?

I think it's slightly more nuanced than this. I think Josh is stating the current general consensus among Dem party insiders: It cannot be perceived that superdelegates overturned the "will of the people." This is the core issue, and likely why Josh said "CLEAR pledged delegate leader." In sum, Hillary must narrow the pledged delegate lead and win the popular to convince the uncommitted supers (and the public) that the race is essentially tied and supers need to settle it. While fighting this battle, she must also hold onto elected superdelegates that represent districts won by Obama.

If Hillary is able to narrow the pledged delegate margin to under 100 and win the popular vote, she will have a much more compelling argument to present to supers. Moreover, her now laughable arguments on "winning" MI/FL, "undemocratic" caucuses, and winning "key" states will suddenly gain credence. If the popular vote is within three-hundred thousand, Hillary will likely argue that FL (at the very least) should be included in the tally as Obama's name was on the ballot. She netted around 316K in FL.

Second, Hillary has to avoid situations like the recent reported flipping of Lynn Woolsey. Hillary surrogates are fond of pointing out the ironic fact that she won MA, so if the supers truly represent the the "will of the people" Sens. Kerry and Kennedy should support her. This works (somewhat) on a theoretical level, however, practically speaking Sens. Kerry and Kennedy have no danger of losing their seats.

Fogu2: Like many of your posts, very strange an seemingly antagonistic for no reason. All Josh is saying is that it is ill advised for party elites (superdelegates) to vote against the candidate who won, by a decisive margin, the most pledged delegates and who played by the rules in doing so -- that doesn't mean they can't, as the rules permit it, but that it is ill advised. What is difficult to understand about that? In my view, the superdelegates are like an appellate panel -- if the voters really screwed it up, or if one of the candidats did not play by the rules, they can step in and reverse the lower court. But in the absence of flagrant error, or candidate misconduct, they should affirm the decision of the voters and participants in the nominating process. I think that is in essence what Josh is saying. Superdelgates should exhibit real restraint in overturning the will of the people.

You have been on any number of threads saying that Hillary was the popular vote winner. Apart from the fact that it is a factually false statement, because it depends on counting a North Korean style primary election (MI) where hers was the only major candidate name on the ballot (and still she won barely more than 50% of he tabulated vote, in a primary which had turnout much lower than the other Democratic primaries this year), and also fails to count a half dozen caucuses where Obama's supporters (all "voters") outnumbered Hillary's by wide margins. So the factual predicate of the claim is bogus. But what is most craven about the argument is this: If this had been an election about "popular vote" -- where popular vote was agreed in advance to be the only metric by which the nominee would be chosen (and, to be crystal clear, which it was not that, particularly since more than 10 states chose participatory caucuses and not primaries to select their delagtes) -- but had it been, Obama would have skipped the caucus states where there are no "popular votes" that the Clinton campaign or pundits are willing to count, and focused all of his efforts on voters in cities and blue states where he did not exhaust all possible efforts to win more votes, because, in proportional voting in a close election, an extra 5% "effort" in a state where you are ahead or behind by 55-45 yields almost no delegates at all, whereas it would yield a large number of "popular votes" that one would need to win a contest measured by popular vote. So it is a warped argument to say she won the popular vote, because there was NEVER a contest for the popular vote (and had there been, he would have run his campaign differently, and defeated her decisively on that too). It is these types of arguments by her, some in her campaign, and some of her supporters, that are frustrating to so many of the rest of us. If you were intellectually honest, you woulnd't make the argument, because it is false, and it implies that he did not win this fair and square, which clearly he did.

Last point. Obama is going to defeat McCain easily. You have been talking al ot about Hillary, but it is seems pretty obvious (to me anyway) that you are a McCain supporter, a troll who is here to stir things up and throw feces at the Dems in order to make yourself feel better and convince yourself that Grandpa McCain has a chance in November. I readily concede that McCain has more Eashington experience than Obama does, and I can understand why he prefers if people don't hold that against him., He is trying to say this a post-Bush campaign, but it can't be that when you choose to support Bush policies almost without exception. If you are saying to sit out the election and let McCain win, then you must be in favor of the Iraq War, in favor of huge tax cuts for the wealthy (while we run $300 Billion (+) deficits and fight a war halfway around the globe); huge federal giveaways to defense and national security government contractors in no-bid privitization ofthe government, where the winners are lobbyists and multinational war machine, and the losers are the public, and in favor of ending a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy safely in the first trimester -- as those are all policies McCain is committed to supporting if he is elected.

Surely there is a different bridge to troll under.