i understand why obama is out trying to get the superdelegates to commit to him. the race is about getting delegates, so he's trying to leverage his good night last tuesday into more super-endorsement. the prevailing wisdom yesterday seemed to be that a cascade of supers would commit to obama this week.
but why would they now? it's basically been over in the sense that clinton had little mathematical chance of winning since the end of february. the media only seemed to fully absorb the message this week, but her campaign has been a real long shot for a few months now. (i mentioned clinton's mathematical problem back in march). although there's been a steady trickle of superdelegates committing since then, most of the uncommitted superdelegates from march are still uncommitted today. if they haven't committed yet, why would they suddenly do it now?
i suspect that they're waiting for the last vote to be cast, on june 3rd. after that, most of the remaining supers will commit and it will be over. the obama campaign wants to move the commit date up to may 20th, the date it projects that it will secure a majority of pledged delegates. maybe that will convince more to commit, but i doubt it. i predict they will wait until after june 3rd, when MT, NM and SD will hold the last primary votes in the presidential race.
once the last pledged delegate gets assigned, there's really nothing more to wait for. i know that the clinton campaign and hard-core clintonistas are holding out to seat the FL and MI delegates, but because those races, like all races on the democratic side, would be assigned proportionately, i don't see how they can make up obama's substantial lead in delegates. right now he's got a pledged delegate lead of about 170. he's 8 behind on the superdelegates. between now and then his lead is sure to grow, perhaps approaching 200.
if FL counted, clinton would get 113 delegates and obama would get 72, a net gain for clinton of 41. if you count MI the way the clinton campaign proposed it be counted, with 73 delegates to clinton and 55 to obama (counting "uncommitted" votes as obama votes since he wasn't on the ballot), clinton would net 18 delegates. together, FL and MI only give clinton a net gain of 58, not enough to cut into obama's current lead. hell, if you don't give obama any delegates from michigan (i.e. don't count "uncommitted" as obama votes), clinton would net 114 delegates, not enough to eliminate obama's existing lead.
so even if the FL and MI issues are still festering on the morning of june 4th. there would be no possible resolution of those issues that could erase obama's delegate lead. and with every primary and caucus finished there would be no need to wait to give everyone a chance to vote. by june 4th there will be no reason at all for the remaining superdelegates not to commit to one candidate or the other. and so, i predict on june 4th (or shortly thereafter) the primary will resolve rather quickly.
but i also predict that it won't happen before then. but hey, at least we're in the home stretch.
