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Clinton's grip on superdelegates is slipping

BY GLENN THRUSH | glenn.thrush@newsday.com

May 10, 2008

WASHINGTON - It's not a stampede yet - but the superdelegates are starting to gallop toward Barack Obama.

Hillary Clinton's aides vowed to continue the fight even as Barack Obama picked up nine superdelegate endorsements Friday to Clinton's two. That left them virtually tied among supers and eliminated the last statistical measure where Clinton could claim an edge.

The developments left the former first lady with 272.5 superdelegates, to 271 for Obama, according to the Associated Press tally. Little more than four months ago, on the eve of the primary season, she held a lead of 169-63.

One of Obama's pickups was Clinton defector New Jersey Rep. Donald Payne, a top member of the Congressional Black Caucus who had remained loyal to Clinton even as her support among black Democrats evaporated.

Clinton strategist Geoff Garin rebuffed the notion that the race was over, saying many of the 260 still-uncommitted superdelegates would stick with Clinton because she is "in a better position to win the general election."

Still, the storm clouds were gathering above the former first lady's flagging campaign all day on Friday - with Rasmussen Reports, a major national polling firm, halting polling on the race, saying "the race is over ... Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee."

"I think it's very hard for her now to make a compelling case for the math," said former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, who hasn't endorsed since dropping out of the race, in an interview on National Public Radio. "I mean, I think that's the reality of what she's faced with. She knows that."

And Clinton's advisers were still defending the campaign against charges of racial divisiveness after Clinton claimed Wednesday that "white Americans" were more likely to vote for her than Obama.

Spokesman Howard Wolfson told reporters in Washington Friday, "We are reaching out to [black voters] ... I have every confidence that at the end of this process the Democratic family will get back together."

Still, the idea that Clinton and Obama will form a "Dream Ticket" suffered a blow when Sen. Ted Kennedy, a key Obama ally, dismissed calls to include the former first lady on the ticket, telling ABC that Obama should select a veep more "in tune with his appeal for the nobler aspirations of the American people."

Despite Obama's big day last Tuesday, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll of registered voters found Clinton still does better nationally in head-to-head matchups against presumptive GOP nominee John McCain, beating him by 9 points, compared with Obama's 6-point edge.

Obama expects to secure more than half the pledged delegates by May 20, all but locking up the nomination. But Wolfson and Garin called it highly unlikely that either candidate can reach the Democratic National Committee's 2,025-delegate victory threshold through the remaining contests, which end June 3.

"We do not believe there will be a nominee chosen unless and until somebody gets to 2,209 [delegates], which is the number that includes Florida and Michigan," Wolfson said. "If that happens by June 3, then someone will be the nominee. If that hasn't happened the nomination fight continues."