It's Up To the Superdelegates

There is growing pressure to crown Obama the Democratic Party presidential nominee and to get Hillary Clinton to drop out of the race, but as a mathematical reality neither Obama nor Clinton can secure enough delegates to win the nomnation outright.  That means the choice of Democratic Party presidential nominee is in the hands of the superdelegates now.

WASHINGTON - Sen. Barack Obama climbed within 200 delegates of clinching the Democratic presidential nomination based on a split decision in Tuesday's primaries.

Obama won most of the delegates at stake in the two contests, picking up at least 94 delegates in the North Carolina and Indiana primaries, according to an analysis of election returns by The Associated Press. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton won at least 79 delegates, with 14 still to be awarded.

Twelve of the outstanding delegates were from North Carolina and two were from Indiana.

In the overall race for the nomination, Obama led with 1,840.5 delegates, including separately chosen party and elected officials known as superdelegates. Clinton had 1,688.

That leaves Obama just 184.5 delegates shy of the 2,025 needed to secure the Democratic nomination.

There are 217 delegates at stake in the final six contests: West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Montana and South Dakota. Obama, however, won't win enough of those delegates to claim the nomination because of the proportional method used by the Democrats to award them.

That leaves the nomination in the hands of about 270 superdelegates who have yet to be claimed. Superdelegates are the party and elected officials who will automatically attend the national convention and can support whomever they choose, regardless of what happens in the primaries and caucuses.

Nearly 800 superdelegates will attend the national convention. About 220 remain undecided and about 50 others will be named at state party conventions and meetings throughout the spring.

Obama argues that superdelegates should support the candidate who wins the most pledged delegates. Clinton says superdelegates should exercise independent judgment.

Obama is on pace to reach a majority of the pledged delegates won in primaries and caucuses in two weeks, when Kentucky and Oregon vote. Obama has a 167-delegate lead among pledged delegates.

Clinton leads in superdelegate endorsements, 270.5 to 256, though Obama has been chipping away at her lead since the Super Tuesday contests on Feb. 5. Both candidates picked up a superdelegate endorsement Tuesday.

Comments

[Rita]

I was hoping Hillary would concede last night. She's too obsessed with taking her place in history, and not looking at what is best for her party and for the country.

I lost respect for Hillary right after 911. I remember that it took a long time for her to make a public appearance. I felt it was an important time for her to be a leader. She was absent for too long. I also remember watching her on TV when Bush did his first speech after 911. I'm not a Bush fan at all, but it was a time when the country needed to come together. I noticed her rolling her eyes when Bush spoke. It really rubbed me the wrong way.