Information Gap

Ambinder says "given that undecided superdelegates have said that their primary criterion for determining who they'll choose is who has the best chance of beating John McCain in the fall, there's no real reason for those superdelegates to choose in June. They'll have MORE information about electability in July or August... so why choose in an environment with less info?" Well, I'd say the reason is that we're not really gaining more information as time goes on (Clinton backers, for example, were making the Wright/Ayers anti-Obama argument to pundits and no doubt superdelegates as well quietly for months before it "hit" the mainstream). What's happening, instead, is that both candidates' negatives are going up while resources aren't being applied against John McCain. Insofar as superdelagates genuinely want to pick a winner, they'll recognize that picking someone gives them a better chance of winning than does a summer of indecision.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2008/04/information-gap/44534/