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.

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Comments

Oh....Chris Matthews...who is a Republican in Democrat Clothing. I have had to stop watching him and I used to be his biggest fan. Thank God for Radio these days. Until Matthew's Colleague comes on at 8:00 p.m. every night, I only listen to Radio during these trying days. My blood pressure has gone down because of turning off Cable News from 5PM to 8PM every night. I also turned off "Morning Blowhard" as he rants on and on.

Barbara C., - Pompano Beach, FL (Sent Friday, April 18, 2008 11:39 AM)

Hillary Clinton's core demographics include older, white, working-class voters, right? Just the sort of people who are either collecting Social Security, or will start doing so relatively soon.

So it must have been interesting to these people when Social Security was debated Wednesday. Clinton attacked Obama's proposal to raise the cap on SS payroll tax. Her final declaration was that more money had to be put into Social Security, but you can't cut existing benefits and you can't raise any taxes to do it. (No mention, mind you, of where the money *would* come from...just "there has to be some way" of doing it with those restrictions.)

When Obama pointed out that her proposal essentially called for forming a commission to study the issue, she mentioned the 1983 commission formed by Reagan and O'Neill that did work to improve SS funding. However, Obama nailed her by pointing out that the very same commission ended up temporarily raising capital-gains taxes and raising the payroll tax cap to do it.

I hope those seniors who wonder about their Social Security payments and living costs were listening.

BMR, Pittsburgh PA (Sent Friday, April 18, 2008 11:39 AM)

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