If the Dems want greater majorities in the Senate and House (pre-Clinton years) and have an eye on the down ballot races---the choice is clear. The Dems can't get anything done with the razor thin majority in the Senate as it is. Choosing another Clinton is to doom the Dem agenda........

SShaw,

Thank you for the kind words about my post on the myth of the national popular vote. I believe that challenging this myth is important both in terms of fairness and in terms of bringing the nomination process to a conclusion.

Of course the political pressures to keep the nomination in play until the convention are very real. But this should not lead us to accept uncritically the "national popular vote" as a criteria, especially one on a par with the delegate count.

Btw, this is not to say that vote totals, caucus and primary, WITHIN individual states should not be considered by superdelegates. That is a separate issue. I have posted an Update at http://msa4.wordpress.com/

How many times did Kiki McLean make the rounds on MSNBC saying 'Delegates nominate the winner, not states'? How many times did she make the delegate argument (especially when the clinton camp thought it would win the delegate race)?

Will Senators Kennedy and Kerry, both Super Delegates, vote the will of their states voters and give their delegate to Hillary? No. What freaking hypocrites!!!

Game on.

I am intrigued by the argument from the Clinton camp, expressed this way in the NYT article: "Mrs. Clinton repeatedly arguing that Mr. Obama did not have the foreign policy credentials to stand up to Senator John McCain...." Can there be any doubt about the intellectual and moral superiority of Obama over McCain? I would expect Obama to destroy McCain's arguments on almost any issue -- but in particular, Iraq! How can McCain defend the lies and manipulations that led to the war? I am sure Obama would relish a debate over Iraq! I am sure Obama would crush the McCain position!

The popular vote is a misleading statistic, because caucuses generally have fewer voters overall and sometimes don't even report "votes" but rather delegates to a larger caucus. For example, in my precinct in Texas, we had about 110 voters that wound up electing 11 delegates to the district caucus, and that precinct reported "11". Since Obama has done much better in caucus states, it's really amazing he's leading in popular vote at all. If he winds up winning in all three catagories (delegates, states and popular vote), then it would take a real stretch of logic for a super to vote for Hillary. If Hillary takes popular vote, they need to evaluate the effect of the caucus wins on that statistic.

As another poster mentioned, elected delegates is the yardstick the DNC set out to designate "the will of the people".

Total popular vote is NOT a representation of the people's will, because caususes have much fewer participants than primaries, so there you have about 15 states whose outcomes count as much as nothing in the total popular vote! "Disenfranchising" 15 states this way is a HUGE violation and should NOT be used in determining the nominee!

I thought Dem superdelegates could vote for any candidate they wanted & for whatever reason they wanted? If thats really the case... Theres nothing to do except wait until the Dem convention on
August 25-28.

Fabulous. Let's just change the rules AGAIN for the Clintons. Why did i bother voting? Why did any of us bother voting?

There is going to be BIG TROUBLE if the delegate count is ignored. The rules weren't changed for Gore, but they're going to be changed for the Clintons?

Unbelievable.

This is not to say the election process doesn't need to be simplified and streamlined. But the time to do that is NOT in the middle of an election!

What country do i LIVE IN?

Do the DNC rules clearly specify that delegate numbers will determine the nominee? That's sure been the number to beat that's been highlighted all along. How can anyone possibly get an accurate popular vote from caucuses and primaries? This rule changing midstream is getting ridiculous!

it all gonna come down to race.

The pledged delegate count is the closest measure of the will of the primary/caucus electorate that the Party has, and it what is prescribed by Party rules (in place since the beginning of the nomination process) as the only offical measure of the electorate's will. Superdelegates who ignore the will of the voters and the public's sense of fundamental fairness and democratic principles will do so at their Party's peril.

I wish the primaries were over now, so we can get renewed and fight McCain. At this point, I don't care who wins. Barack and Clinton have both damaged each other and the democratic party. It is obvious the superdelegates are divided, the DNC is divided, voters are divided by identity, the blogisphere is divided, while McCain is uniting his party.

We are so screwed up, we are handing the presidency to McCain. Brace ourselves for 100 year war in Iraq, war with Iran, economy in the tank, and foreclosure on every house in America including the white house (if China doesn't already own it)

The convention selects its nominee based on DELEGATES, not the "popular vote." Mr. Obama has more delegates than Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Obama has won more delegates from more states than Mrs. Clinton. All this goalpost shifting and rule changing, and sudden concern about the "party" is mindboggling. All of these machinations by the Clintons to "steal" a win by trickery should land them in jail -- theft by deception, perhaps.

If uncommitted superdelegates need help, I'd suggest they read the DNC Rules. If they are unaware of the delegate process, I submit they do not deserve to be "super" anything.

The DNC should also be warned that they are playing with fire here. Subverting the will of the people -- and so far the people want Barack Obama -- may lead to trouble in the streets in Denver and the end of the "democratic" Democratic party.

Well, well, well. NOW anyone with two brain cells to rub together can figure out why all the sudden hysterical screaming about Barack Obama's association with a latter-day Cotton Mather. (Because, frankly, that's all Rev. Jeremiah Wright is, really - a hellfire-and-brimstone preacher somewhat behind the times. And even the Rev. knows it, or he would not be retired.)

It's GOT to be an effort to scare the superdelegates into lining up behind the OTHER Democratic candidate, the one whose dirty laundry trails out behind her for miles.