The delegate fight
Posted: Friday, April 18, 2008 9:16 AM by Mark Murray
The New York Times finds superdelegates are not yet moved by the new round of attacks on Obama. "Yet despite giving it her best shot in what might have been their final debate, interviews on Thursday with a cross-section of these superdelegates — members of Congress, elected officials and party leaders — showed that none had been persuaded much by her attacks on Mr. Obama’s strength as a potential Democratic nominee, his recent gaffes and his relationships with his former pastor and with a onetime member of the Weather Underground."
More: "In interviews, 15 uncommitted superdelegates said they did not believe that recent gaffes by both candidates would carry any particular influence over their final decision. They said they had particularly tired of all the attention, by the Clinton campaign and the news media, on Mr. Obama’s recent comment that some Americans were ‘bitter’ over the economy and chose to ‘cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them’ as a result.
“And if there were some moments of concern reflected in the debate — the talk of Mrs. Clinton’s high unfavorability ratings, Mr. Obama’s flashes of annoyance — they all doubted that those moments would be deal-breakers, either. Instead, most of the superdelegates said they wanted to wait for the results of at least the next major primaries — in Pennsylvania on Tuesday and Indiana and North Carolina two weeks later — before choosing a candidate."
USA Today and Gannett News also talked to a slew of superdelegates this week and found most won't make a decision based on the Pennsylvania results.
"Some female superdelegates backing Sen. Barack Obama are having their 'sisterhood' questioned, just as some black Democrats have been challenged for their endorsement of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton," the AP reports. "No one has actually accused Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., of betraying her gender in supporting Obama over Clinton in the race for the party's nomination, but they've let her know they're disappointed. The reason some give: If Clinton does not win the White House this year, no woman will reach that goal in their lifetimes."
Here's the AP's list of female members of Congress supporting Obama.
