Barack Obama 'has enough super-delegates to win Democratic nomination'

[JimGinPA]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/1943910/Barack-Obama-'has-enough-super-delegates-to-win-Democratic-nomination'.html

Barack Obama believes he has already secured the private support of enough super-delegates to beat Hillary Clinton in the race for the Democratic White House nomination, The Sunday Telegraph has learned.

The Illinois senator last week switched his attention to the general election battle against John McCain after locking down more than enough pledges to reach the victory target of 2,025 delegates.

A senior Democrat strategist, familiar with discussions at the highest levels of the Obama camp, has revealed that Mr Obama is now confident of the support of around 120 of the remaining 260 undeclared superdelegates.

His aides believe he will only need between 70 and 80 to be sure of the nomination if he wins the Oregon, Montana and South Dakota primaries as expected ater this month.




For First Time, More Superdelegates Favor Obama

The trump card Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton held in her faltering bid for president — her support among the superdelegates who can control the fate of the Democratic nomination — began slipping from her grasp on Friday as Senator Barack Obama moved into the lead on this front, with uncommitted delegates declaring their allegiance to him as others deserted her.

Mrs. Clinton publicly vowed to fight on for the nomination while campaigning on Friday in Oregon. But a new, more conciliatory tone crept into her stump speeches, as she shied away from the more spirited attacks on Mr. Obama that characterized her recent primary battles, instead engaging him more gently on the issues while aiming her fire on Senator John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican nominee.

The superdelegate movement toward Mr. Obama, of Illinois — giving him a net gain of six on Friday alone, with more expected — increased the pressure on Mrs. Clinton, of New York, to at least refrain from divisive remarks, particularly after her comments on Wednesday that lower-income white voters would not support Mr. Obama if he became the Democratic nominee. Aides now say she regrets the comments.

Democratic officials said what had been a trickle of superdelegates declaring for Mr. Obama was turning into a steady stream in the wake of Tuesday’s primaries, when Mrs. Clinton lost by 14 percentage points in North Carolina and narrowly won Indiana. Mr. Obama is just 166 delegates away from the 2,025 delegates needed to secure the nomination.

“I think the tipping point was reached around midnight last Tuesday,” said Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, predicting a “significant and steady movement toward Obama” by superdelegates.

Clinton advisers say attacks on Mr. Obama are no longer enough to change the momentum or the outcome of the nomination race. So continuing to attack him on the campaign trail, at this point, would probably inflict more long-term harm on Mrs. Clinton than on Mr. Obama, her advisers said.

more at link

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/10/us/politics/10clinton.html?em&ex=1210564800&en=8b78d3451fee8e53&ei=5087%0A

[rurallib]

1. Do the ones from caucus states count?

[FlaGranny]

2. It occured to me yesterday

WHY the delegates are "trickling" to Obama. I'll bet you he is asking them to come out for him a few at a time for the sole purpose of gently letting Hillary down gradually. If they all came out at once it would be a humiliation to Clinton. I believe he wants to convince her gradually so that she may save face. I believe he is diplomatic enough to do it that way. The trouble is, I don't think Clinton is "getting" the real picture all that well.

[davidpdx]

3. Yes, that could be

And also letting them out in a controlled manner let's Obama's campaign control the news cycle in the way they want to.

DemConWatch had him down .5 delegates, so don't start partying yet. Plus there are going to be add ons from OH and MA which will most likely go to Clinton.

[DemsUnited]

4. Agree, plus he's keeping some in reserve to play during bad news days,

like when he loses WV by a potentially embarrassing number.

Not looking forward to that...

[rocktivity]

8. Obama doesn't need more than 35% of WV

because that would stop Hillary from getting the 86% that she needs. Anything less than a 72-point margin of victory will only help her beg for a few last campaign contributions.

:headbang:
rocknation

[stahbrett]

5. I have a more cynical explanation about the trickling

They each want their moment in the sun - they want their name mentioned in the newspapers and on TV, they want to be asked for interviews, etc. If too many declare at once, then only a few get that recognition.

[JimGinPA]

13. I'm Sure That Entered Into The Equation As Well...

Very smart considering most of them are politicians after all.

[Hokie]

6. I suppose you could be right but I suspect not

I think they are acting as individuals and making up their minds one at a time. This game keeps moving towards the inevitable conclusion now. I think the supers will continue to in Obama's direction. Michigan and Florida will be seated with compromises that will be net Hillary but not enough to matter. Then we can all get down to the business of beating the terrible candidate that the republicans handed us with their flawed winner take all system of primaries.

[FlaGranny]

7. I don't doubt that some are

doing it for the limelight, some are making up their minds one at a time, and each of the reasons above. I think he has enough who've privately committed to him that they could humiliate Clinton if they came out all at once, and I don't believe Obama wants that to happen. He's a smart man and a diplomat too.

[JimGinPA]

9. I Posted An Article A Couple Of Days Ago That Confirmed That...

They've had SD's come out in a controlled manner for some time. The Obama campaign decided some time ago not to bring them out all at once to control the news cycles and as not to embarass her.

[FlaGranny]

12. Confirmed then.

;-) My "feelings" are on the money. That Obama is a classy fella to be giving Clinton a chance to go out with dignity. It's unfortunate that she probably won't.

[JimGinPA]

10. Dupe

[Onyx488]

11. It would work if the Clintons were graceful people, but history proves otherwise....

The Clintons have never understood how to exit the stage gracefully.


Their repertoire has always been deficient in grace and class. So there was Hillary Clinton cold-bloodedly asserting to USA Today that she was the candidate favored by “hard-working Americans, white Americans,” and that her opponent, Barack Obama, the black candidate, just can’t cut it with that crowd.
“There’s a pattern emerging here,” said Mrs. Clinton.

There is, indeed. There was a name for it when the Republicans were using that kind of lousy rhetoric to good effect: it was called the Southern strategy, although it was hardly limited to the South. Now the Clintons, in their desperation to find some way — any way — back to the White House, have leapt aboard that sorry train.

He can’t win! Don’t you understand? He’s black! He’s black!
The Clintons have been trying to embed that gruesomely destructive message in the brains of white voters and superdelegates for the longest time. It’s a grotesque insult to African-Americans, who have given so much support to both Bill and Hillary over the years.
(Representative Charles Rangel of New York, who is black and has been an absolutely unwavering supporter of Senator Clinton’s White House quest, told The Daily News: “I can’t believe Senator Clinton would say anything that dumb.”)

But it’s an insult to white voters as well, including white working-class voters. It’s true that there are some whites who will not vote for a black candidate under any circumstance. But the United States is in a much better place now than it was when people like Richard Nixon, George Wallace and many others could make political hay by appealing to the very worst in people, using the kind of poisonous rhetoric that Senator Clinton is using now.

I don’t know if Senator Obama can win the White House. No one knows. But to deliberately convey the idea that most white people — or most working-class white people — are unwilling to give an African-American candidate a fair hearing in a presidential election is a slur against whites.
The last time the Clintons had to make a big exit was at the end of Bill Clinton’s second term as president — and they made a complete and utter hash of that historic moment. Having survived the Monica Lewinsky ordeal, you might have thought the Clintons would be on their best behavior.

Instead, a huge scandal erupted when it became known that Mrs. Clinton’s brothers, Tony and Hugh Rodham, had lobbied the president on behalf of criminals who then received presidential pardons or a sentence commutation from Mr. Clinton.
Tony Rodham helped get a pardon for a Tennessee couple that had hired him as a consultant and paid or loaned him hundreds of thousands of dollars. Over the protests of the Justice Department, President Clinton pardoned the couple, Edgar Allen Gregory Jr. and his wife, Vonna Jo, who had been convicted of bank fraud in Alabama.

Hugh Rodham was paid $400,000 to lobby for a pardon of Almon Glenn Braswell, who had been convicted of mail fraud and perjury, and for the release from prison of Carlos Vignali, a drug trafficker who was convicted and imprisoned for conspiring to sell 800 pounds of cocaine. Sure enough, in his last hours in office (when he issued a blizzard of pardons, many of them controversial), President Clinton agreed to the pardon for Braswell and the sentence commutation for Vignali.

Hugh Rodham reportedly returned the money after the scandal became public and was an enormous political liability for the Clintons.
Both Clintons professed to be ignorant of anything improper or untoward regarding the pardons. Once, when asked specifically if she had talked with a deputy White House counsel about pardons, Mrs. Clinton said: “People would hand me envelopes. I would just pass them on. You know, I would not have any reason to look into them.”

It wasn’t just the pardons that sullied the Clintons’ exit from the White House. They took furniture and rugs from the White House collection that had to be returned. And they received $86,000 in gifts during the president’s last year in office, including clothing (a pantsuit, a leather jacket), flatware, carpeting, and so on. In response to the outcry over that, they decided to repay the value of the gifts.
So class is not a Clinton forte.

But it’s one thing to lack class and a sense of grace, quite another to deliberately try and wreck the presidential prospects of your party’s likely nominee — and to do it in a way that has the potential to undermine the substantial racial progress that has been made in this country over many years.
The Clintons should be ashamed of themselves. But they long ago proved to the world that they have no shame.

[grantcart]

14. excellent

[JimGinPA]

15. Notice Our M$M Hasn't Mentioned This?

Probably too much of a buzz-kill for them.

[progressoid]

16. It's stunning how often I find better news coverage from 'across the pond'

about our own country. This is why I don't miss CNN etc since canceling cable.

[JimGinPA]

17. My Main Reason For Coming To DU Was That LBN Often Had Unreported Or Under-reported Articles...

That posters linked to that I may have never seen otherwise. I lurked for a couple years before I registered and seldom posted before this primary season.

[TragedyandHope]

18. This is definitely a tactical trickle

Like water wearing down a stone.

[my3boyz]

19. Well, Obama is better than me because I would

let a HUGE chunk of them pledge their support immediately after she wins WV. That way it will blunt any momentum that she might get and also take over the news story. I can imagine the headlines saying that she scores big in West Virginia but is no closer to the nomination.