Where the Uncommitteds Are

Heading into Memorial Day weekend, there are 178.5 remaining uncommitted Supers (this according to the New York Times as their sorting mechanism is very convenient).

The breakdown is: 101.5 DNC Members,  49 Members of Congress (9 are House Freshmen), 17 Senators, 6 Governors and 5 add ons.

A few weeks ago, I attempted to make predictions as to where the Supers would go moving forward.  I mentioned that all DNC members were up for grabs, and since then they have actually had the most movement.  Only 12 members of Congress have declared, and surprisingly an additional 9 House freshmen have made declarations.  Only 2 Senators and 1 Governor have declared since April 24th.

The remaining members are either members of the Pelosi Club, and may be waiting for the primaries to formally end before making public declarations.  Or, they may be inclined to never make an endorsement which means the nomination will be decided without them.

Either way, the pool of uncommitted Superdelegates is shrinking and the ability to prolong or end this nomination rests solely with these individuals.  And According to the New York Times delegate calculator, Senator Clinton needs 94% of the remaining Superdelegates to win the nomination.  Which means she needs 168 Supers to win the nomination (alright, it's actually 167.79 since that 1/2 vote makes the math all funny in there).

Comments

[MrvnMouse]

MrSuper:

I know you get asked this all the time, but is there a really good reason that the supers are still not declaring? Iirc, you said they would likely declare after the May 20th vote, but so far there has been very little movement. It would be natural to assume that they will declare after June 3rd, but at the same time I don't see that happening either anymore.

Are the SDs planning on letting this go to convention?

[Dan_in_upstate_NY]

Ed--you said that some supers "may be inclined to never make an endorsement which means the nomination will be decided without them."

Is this really true? If so, it is truly a pathetic state of affairs. I can understand how some supers want to wait for all the primaries to be concluded. But to refuse to make any endorsement, ever? It boggles the mind. Such individuals really have no right to be superdelegates in the first place, since they are failing to fulfill their most basic obligation--to vote for one candidate or the other.

An added problem is that, if this pool of "abstainers" is large enough, it gives Clinton some justification for taking this to the convention.

Do you have any sense of how many "abstainers" there are?

[Mr Super]

MrvnMouse - a large pool of Supers are waiting for the June 3rd primaries to conclude, since so many people have made public statements saying they would wait until then (even I did at one point).

Dan - remember: most Supers didn't ask to be Supers. Elected officials were elected to serve in office and most didn't know they were a Superdelegate until this year. You're right - they don't deserve it, but at the same time they never asked for it.

My guess is that the number of abstainers is very small.

[Joe]

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2258065420080522?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

I'm thinking that McCain is starting to characterize himself as someone with an anger problem after this.

I wonder if other ex-Republicans like myself are thinking the same thing?

[eagleye]

If I were Hillary, I'd concede graciously sooner than later, rather than wait to be eliminated by the math. But I guess she'd rather hang in there so she can feed her victim complex.

[Joe]

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/22/mccain-rejects-hagee-backing-as-nazi-remarks-surface/?hp

Hagee finally hits the mainstream press. If this bit about Nazis had been closer to the actual election, I think it would have sunk McCain due to the Jewish vote in Florida.

[Joe]

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/05/questions-about.html

Looks like McCain is feeling out us techies for some free press (and the hope of getting the donations I understand we're somewhat more inclined to give).

Anyone have good questions for Carly? I can't believe McCain chose her as an economic adviser after the infamous melt-down at HP on her watch.

I don't know how many others remember that, but I'd have said that he sent exactly the wrong surrogate to talk to technical people and it doesn't appear that he even knows that...

[Blame]

I don't know if Carly is the right choice, but the principle is good. Nobody will expect McCain (or Obama) to be an expert on economics. McCain is effectively saying "I might not know everything but I am recruiting people who do, I am going to give them authority, and here they are."

This is exactly what Obama should be doing.

[AG]

Seems there are few things in play.

Clinton is setting up to force the rules committee to define FLA and MICH delegate placement.

Would the Supers not see that making their decision ahead of the meeting will extinguish the hyperbole around how to place these 2 states?

If so, there decisions must be timed ahead of the last 3 primaries.

If the remaining supers wait until after the last 3 primaries, they give ammunition to a firestorm at the rules meeting.

Thoughts?

[An American Watching Closely From Canada]

I agree with AG. Hillary is making "a fool" of the remaining SDs - by threatening the RBC with a protesting mob. I hate to think it has come down to this...

Also: Would it be beneficial for a certain number of SDs to declare and then let the remaining primaries give Obama the necessary delegates to cross the finish line? I know that's probably a lot more strategic than we can hope for, but the above scenario is pretty unnerving.

[LindaS]

Been seein' this train wreck comin' for awhile (and none too happy about it, either!). This is where I pointed out my frustration with the lack of a coherent plan, or even anybody to lead it, among the SDs. And didn't somebody refer to "dysfunctional" in one post? (Or maybe that was just Bill Moyers on Charlie Rose talking about his new book on the state of our democracy--something about "too many have a stake in the dysfunction of our system.....").

[Sarah]

Here's a great rundown of "the math" as it stands, and an analysis of seating FL and MI:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/5/23/8357/78578/512/520186

[Joe]

> I don't know if Carly is the right choice, but the principle is good. Nobody will expect McCain (or Obama) to be an expert on economics. McCain is effectively saying "I might not know everything but I am recruiting people who do, I am going to give them authority, and here they are."

No, I mean, it's GOOD to have economic advisers. I wouldn't say otherwise. But they should have _GOOD_ ones :)

Carly Fiona is widely blamed for nearly killing HP. I wouldn't think someone best known for a failure of that magnitude would be the best choice of adviser (though I hope she learned from it).

What's worse, though, is that among geeks like myself, that's ALL we remember about her. Sending her as the surrogate to talk to geeks shows that they're COMPLETELY out of touch, because geeks were the angriest over what she did to HP (and geeks loved HP, due to their strong engineering culture).

It's just a matter of him putting the wrong foot forward in trying to attract the geek vote he knows little about.

[Joe]

Just to put it in a little more perspective, sending Carly Fiona to talk to geeks is almost like sending Carl Rove or Richard Nixon to talk to hardcore Democrats. Or sending the KKK to talk to African Americans. Or...

I'm running out of examples, but I hope I made the point :)

[suekzoo]

Super count so far today:

Obama +5
Clinton -1

Progress!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/23/superdelegates-shift-to-o_n_103275.html