Clinton's rally too weak to woo superdelegates

Published on Saturday 3 May 2008 19:43

HAVE Hillary Clinton's chances of winning the Democratic presidential nomination improved as Barack Obama has struggled through his toughest month of the campaign?

After weeks in which her candidacy was seen by many party leaders as a long shot at best, Clinton's advisers argued strenuously last week that the answer is most assuredly yes, and that the outlook offers her a real chance.

Yet Obama continues to pick up the support of superdelegates – elected Democrats and party leaders – at a quicker pace than Clinton. Last week, he received a boost from a high-profile defection: Joe Andrew, a former Democratic National Party chairman who had been installed in the position by former President Bill Clinton, said he had changed his mind and would back Obama. Even after a Clinton victory in Pennsylvania, Obama has held on to a solid lead in pledged delegates, those selected by the voting in primaries and caucuses.

And while Clinton has cut into Obama's popular vote lead, it would be difficult for her to overtake him without counting disputed results in Florida and perhaps Michigan.

Last night, Obama extended his led by defeating Clinton in the Guam caucuses by just seven votes.

Islanders who came out to vote struggled to chose between the two, with Obama getting 2264 votes to Clinton's 2257.

The territory sends four pledged delegates and five superdelegates to the National Convention in August, where the candidate will be officially named.

By and large, the group that matters most at this point – the uncommitted superdelegates, who are likely to hold the balance of power – still seem to view their decision the way the Obama campaign would like them to see it. They suggest they are more sympathetic to the argument that they should follow the will of the voters as expressed by the delegates amassed by the candidates when the primary season is done, rather than following Clinton's admonitions to select the candidate they think would best be able to defeat John McCain and the Republicans in November.

"It's about the numbers," said Chris Redfern, chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party, who is an uncommitted superdelegate. "It's not about hand-wringing. And Senator Obama has the lead."

A series of polls signal that Obama's troubles have shaken confidence among Democratic voters, and it is too early to measure fully how much he may have been hurt by the incendiary appearances of his former pastor, Rev Jeremiah Wright, who has claimed that the US government deserved some blame for the September 11 attacks and had a hand in spreading Aids to blacks.

A big Clinton victory in Indiana on Tuesday and in West Virginia next week, combined with her big wins in Pennsylvania and Ohio, could give her that much more ammunition to say that Obama will fail to draw blue-collar support against McCain of Arizona in the autumn.

Yet interviews with many uncommitted superdelegates suggest the first things they will consider is who has the lead in pledged delegates and in the popular vote, both measures that would favour Obama.

David Plouffe, the manager of Obama's campaign, said that if even if Clinton wins 55% of the remaining pledged delegates she would still need to win about two-thirds of the remaining uncommitted superdelegates to reach the threshold of 2,025 total delegates needed to secure the nomination.

Clinton's advisers did not dispute his calculation, in effect acknowledging the enormity of their task.

Senator Christopher Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat who ran for president and has since endorsed Obama, said that Clinton still had a chance – but it was something of a long-shot. "I still don't think the math is there," he said.

Most of what chance Clinton has rests on her ability to convince superdelegates that Obama would be a flawed general election candidate.

Many superdelegates said they were queasy about Obama and his former pastor, and fearful of how it will be used in the autumn. Still, they said they are not yet not convinced that it makes him a weaker general election candidate than Clinton.

Andrew, the former national party chairman who abandoned Clinton to join Obama, said that Obama's response to his problems with Wright convinced him that he was the best choice for the party.

"What's happened here is how he has handled each one of these crises – because you know there are going to be crises – has made him an even stronger candidate," he said.