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Super Delegates Look Down, Look Up for Assistance
By Jonathan Allen
The Congressional Quarterly
Tuesday 25 March 2008
Most of the superdelegates who have yet to pick sides in the Democratic presidential
primary appear to be waiting for another authority - either voters or
party leaders - to select their party's nominee.
With neither candidate in a position to win enough pledged delegates to garner
the nomination or enough popular votes to claim a clear mandate, the elected
leaders and other party officials who make up the superdelegate corps are increasingly
looking farther up the party hierarchy for decisive action.
As the end of the primary season draws nearer - and their role in determining
the nominee grows clearer - there is no help on the horizon.
There are 79 members of Congress who are still undeclared despite already having
seen the results from elections held in their districts, states or territories,
according to a list posted on the Demconwatch Web site.
Democratic voters in John F. Tierney 's 6th District, along the North
Shore of Massachusetts, favored New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton 61 percent
to 39 percent over Illinois Sen. Barack Obama in the state's Feb. 5 presidential
primary. But Tierney, one of 794 superdelegates to the Democratic National Convention,
hasn't said whom he will support.
Similarly, Susan A. Davis who represents a San Diego-based district more than
3,000 miles away, is keeping her cards close to her chest, even though Obama
won her district 49 percent to 47 percent.
Tierney and Davis are among the 104 House members, delegates from territories
and the District of Columbia and senators who have yet to commit their vote
to either candidate. Twenty-five of them come from states that have yet to vote,
including Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia and
Oregon.
Obama and Clinton appear to have won a roughly even share of the districts
and states represented by undeclared superdelegates in places where primaries
and caucuses already have been held - though the exact numbers change
depending on whether superdelegates and votes from Florida and Michigan are
counted. The Democratic National Committee stripped Florida and Michigan of
its delegates as punishment for holding primaries earlier than party rules permit.
The lawmakers who have endorsed have more often than not reflected the voting
in their districts. But that has not always been the case.
A CQ Politics analysis using party and state data, as well as information from
Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections, has identified 22 declared
Clinton supporters whose districts, states or territories tilted toward Obama.
The tally includes three Floridians - Alcee L. Hastings , Kendrick B.
Meek and Corrine Brown - but does not include John Lewis and David Scott
, a pair of Georgia congressmen who supported Clinton but flipped into the Obama
column after their districts went for Obama.
On Obama's endorsement list, there are 12 lawmakers, including Florida
Rep. Robert Wexler , whose constituents favored Clinton.
Some of the states that have voted have not reported district-level presidential
primary data, precluding the compilation of a complete list of outcomes in all
the districts that have voted thus far. Texas and New Jersey, where Clinton
won, are the most populous that have yet to report vote tallies by congressional
district.
Davis, echoing the sentiments of many of her colleagues, said she would prefer
if the superdelegates are not in a position come August to throw the race in
one direction or the other.
"I'm hoping we don't," she said, noting that the close
contest in her district leaves her without convincing direction from her constituents.
"No clear mandate at all in this district, so that makes my job probably
tougher not easier," she said. "It really does come down to who
you believe will be the best leader in this country."
She was one of several undeclared superdelegates invited to meet with Clinton
and some of her backers at her home in Washington, D.C., earlier this month.
"I did ask about the tone and 'How are you going to bring the party
together in the end no matter what happens?' " Davis said she inquired
of Clinton during a question-and-answer session. "She stated very strongly
that she would do everything in her power - no matter what happened -
to do that."
The strength of the party in November also is weighing on Tierney as he considers
his options.
"A so-called 'superdelegate' is, I believe, expected to weigh
and balance one's own preference for any candidate, the preference expressed
in a district or state, viability or electability, and the potential of superdelegates
to weigh in at a convention in a way that would add to an eventual nominee's
electability by affecting any margin of convention victory," he said.
But he is not offering much insight into who might benefit from his calculus.
"Massachusetts voters were clearly enthusiastic about their choices this
election. I share that enthusiasm," he said. "The respective campaigns
appear to be equally enthusiastic about reaching out to all voters - both
directly and through surrogates - and that is to be expected and respected.
As I have stated previously, I have not announced my vote, and I have no present
plans to do so in the immediate future."
Many superdelegates hope that party leaders will set up a process - perhaps
a "mini" convention before the party's official convention
in August - in which they can express their preferences and select a nominee
without risking an ugly and public floor fight.
"What the politicians want is to not have anybody in the party feel like
this thing was stolen, and that's different from protecting their own
hides or being risk averse," said the top aide to one superdelegate who
has yet to back either candidate. "They just don't want people to
go into the general without a bad taste in their mouth, and that may be impossible."
That aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, laid out a labyrinth of
intensely political choices: Superdelegates must weigh the possibility of alienating
Clinton voters in swing areas of swing states against the possibility of a backlash
from the new voters Obama has brought to the polls across the country, the short-term
gain of winning the presidency against the long-term loss of faith in the Democratic
Party, the expressed will of the voters against the needs of the party, and
which of the various questions can be answered definitively before they must
take sides.
"Until the elders, until the leadership and until the American people
across all levels speak in some definitive way about a process to both be decisive
and protective of these two groups, everyone's holding their breath, and
it's very unsettling and difficult for the party to have this split and
it only gets more so the more time goes on," the aide said. "They
are hoping for a process that will either allow the voters to decide or to allow
the voters to feel like they have decided after the superdelegate process is
born out - if it has to come to that."
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