The Superdelegate Crunch

Tomorrow we head out to the Wisconsin primaries, where we'll see whether or not Hillary can stop the bleeding. Her campaign seems severely off its stride, and it's not clear what exactly its strategy is at the moment. Or maybe it is clear: Hillary's people will do whatever is necessary to make sure she secure's the nomination that's rightfully hers. Senator Chuck Schumer, Hillary's colleague from New York may have inadvertently spoken the truth yesterday on Meet the Press:

Here's the bottom line once again, Tim. Each candidate, of course, takes the position that benefits them at the moment.

And that was him speaking in defense of Hillary. Essentially, he's saying, "We'll say what we need to to win the nomination."

The big sticking point right now is the superdelegates, which I actually believe will turn out to be a total nonissue. It's true that superdelegates can make up their own minds for whatever reasons they choose to vote for whoever they want to vote for. If they agree to get together as a block and vote for Obama or Hillary or Al Gore, they can do that. Hillary's trying to make sure they retain that power, and Obama's trying to push them to follow the votes of the people they represent. Obviously, both candidates now expect (or fear, as the case may be) that Obama will win the most regular delegates, so the superdelegates are looking more and more like they'll be Hillary's only chance to win. But when considering what they superdelegates will do, it's very important to remember on primary fact. Who are the superdelegates, after all? They're elected government officials and elected party officials. That means they're politicians. Even though they could if they so chose, they're not going to back Hillary if all the momentum's behind Obama. Similarly, of course, if Obama stumbles and Hillary picks up the slack and moves ahead, they won't stick with Obama. They want to be with the winner. And don't get distracted by the superdelegates each candidate already has. Superdelegates don't have to commit themselves until the actual floor vote takes place at the convention. Every single superdelegate could come out tomorrow and pledge themselves to Hillary and then turn around the next day and switch to Obama. They're not going to do this, obviously, because people are watching, but their commitment to a particular candidate is never necessarily more than that. Hillary has however many superdelegates she now claims, but if Obama sweeps Wisconsin and Hillary can't make up the difference in Texas and Ohio, trust me--they're going to bail. (And not to pile on Hillary, if the Obama momentum falls flat and Hillary starts picking up speed, it'll be no time until some of the Obama superdelegates start to peel away.) It's pointless to be spending so much time trying to lock in the superdelegates now when they don't truly matter for another few months. Why do you think more than half of the superdelegates haven't come down on one side or the other? They're waiting to see who the winner is, and then that's who they'll support.