Clinton superdelegate lead over Obama cut in half

Steven R. Hurst

WASHINGTON — Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton fought hard for the white working class vote in this week’s primaries, but they also battled behind the scenes to bring on board uncommitted superdelegates likely to have the final say in deciding the party’s presidential nominee.

Obama has cut Clinton’s advantage with crucial superdelegates by half in two months and now has reaped backing from the man who ran the party apparatus in the last years of Bill Clinton’s presidency.

Clinton, who stands virtually no chance of overcoming Obama in delegates chosen in state primaries and caucuses, must roll up a big lead among superdelegates — the 800 party leaders who may vote for whomever they like at the August convention — if she hopes to capture the place at the top of the Democratic ticket.

Reversing his decision to support Clinton, which he declared on the day Clinton announced her candidacy, Joe Andrew now is calling for Democrats to join him behind Obama to “heal the rift in our party.”

Andrew, Democratic National Committee chairman from 1999-2001, held a news conference last Thursday in the Indiana state capital of Indianapolis, his hometown, to urge voters to support Obama in Tuesday’s primary. As one of the last big states in the primary schedule, the Indiana vote was perhaps the most important contest left.

Andrew also wrote a lengthy letter explaining his decision, which he plans to send to fellow superdelegates.

“I am convinced that the primary process has devolved to the point that it’s now bad for the Democratic Party,” Andrew said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

Tuesday’s Indiana vote, a toss-up according to pre-ballot polling, coincided with North Carolina’s primary, where Obama was expected to win. That state’s large African American population decisively backs Obama’s bid to be America’s first black president.

Counting Andrew, Obama snagged four superdelegates last Wednesday. Clinton picked up three, leaving her with a 264-244 advantage. But Obama leads in the overall delegate count by 1,732.5 to 1,598.5, a margin that Clinton will be virtually unable to overcome unless she takes all the remaining state and territorial contests by huge margins, a scenario largely seen as impossible. The candidates need 2,025 delegates to take the nomination.

In his letter to superdelegates, Andrew said he switched support because “a vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote to continue this process, and a vote to continue this process is a vote that assists [Republican] John McCain.” Arizona Senator McCain wrapped up his party’s top spot two months ago.

“While I was hopeful that a long, contested primary season would invigorate our party, the polls show that the tone and temperature of the race is now hurting us,” Andrew wrote.

Andrew said the Obama campaign did not ask him to switch his support, but he decided to do so after watching Obama’s handling of two issues in recent days. He said Obama took the principled stand in opposing a summer gas tax holiday that both Clinton and McCain supported, even though it would have been easier politically to back it. And he said he was impressed with Obama’s handling of the controversy surrounding his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Wright’s outspoken criticisms of the United States have threatened Obama’s candidacy. Obama initially refused to denounce his former pastor but did so last Tuesday after Wright suggested that Obama secretly agreed with him.

“He has shown such mettle under fire,” Andrew said in the interview. “The Jeremiah Wright controversy just reconfirmed for me, just as the gas tax controversy confirmed for me, that he is the right candidate for our party.”

Andrew’s concerns were underscored by a recent Associated Press-Ipsos poll in which many backers of both Clinton and Obama said they would support McCain if their candidate does not take the nomination.

The most recent Gallup national tracking poll among Democrats showed Clinton with a statistically insignificant 1-point lead over Obama, down from his 10-percentage point advantage going into last week’s Pennsylvania primary, where Clinton won handily.

Obama has suffered mightily among white working class voters in the controversy driven by remarks of his former pastor who said from the pulpit that God should damn America for its treatment of blacks.

The Illinois senator was further hurt by disclosure of his own remarks at a private fundraising event where he said working class Americans were clinging to guns and religion as their living standards plummet.

Clinton said last Wednesday she found Wright’s remarks “offensive and outrageous” and noted that Obama had spoken out forcefully against them.

“I think that he made his views clear, finally, that he disagreed. And I think that’s what he had to do,” Clinton said in an interview with Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly.

It was the former first lady’s first appearance on the O’Reilly show, the most popular Fox News program and a staple of conservative media. Over the years, O’Reilly has been a staunch critic of both the New York senator and her husband.

Both Obama and Clinton are trying to make points with American consumers, motorists especially who are facing record prices for gasoline and diesel fuel.

Clinton has joined McCain in calling for a suspension of federal taxes on fuel during the summer holiday season.

Obama contends both his opponents are engaged in gimmickry that would actually increase fuel consumption nationally, cause prices to rise still further and ravage the treasury of tax money needed for transportation infrastructure. He called their plans shortsighted measures that would save American drivers a pittance over the course of the summer.

Instead, Obama said he would push for a middle class tax cut that could save working families an average of $1,000 a year.

(Associated Press)