Supers Trickle

Barack Obama has taking a beating in the press and in the public polls, but the party's superdelegates don't seem to have been swayed. Today, Obama picks up the endorsement of Rep. Bruce Braley (D-IA) and Rep. Baron Hill (D-IN), while Clinton was endorsed by a Pennsylvania delegate, the head of the state's AFL-CIO.

CLINTON HAS picked 9 superdelegates since her win in Ohio. Obama has picked up 40. Since Pennsylvania, Clinton has picked up 5; Obama has picked up nine. There are 237 left. The trickle of superdelegates to Obama reflects two forces. One is that superdelegates are becoming more and more concerned with that if the party fails to unify quickly, it won't be able to unify, ever. The second is a conviction that because Obama will win (cross-reference the mathematical arguments), the party must draw hermetic circle around him as quickly as possible in order to avoid allowing any more of his magic to escape. This pressure is crossed by the superdelegates' own personal political concerns and their own personal preferences. So one one hand, the superdelegates face peer pressure and public pressure to coalesce around Obama; on the other, they nurture their private doubts.