Superdelegates

Former North Carolina Gov. Jim Hunt's op-ed supporting the concept of superdelegates ["Why the Superdelegate Idea Works," Feb. 27] unwittingly displayed a platitudinous arrogance of power. While Mr. Hunt made valid points about the valuable experience and knowledge of superdelegates, such factors are not substantial enough to justify diminishing our democratic principles to this extent. Party leaders already have a powerful role in selecting our Democratic nominee. They have access to the press, television and talk radio, and they can use...

Eighteen months removed from a protracted presidential primary fight, a group of Democrats gathered by President Obama has recommended that the party effectively eliminate the influence of so-called superdelegates by redefining their voting power. The Democratic Change Commission, which was convened last August to examine the nominating process, is recommending that superdelegates -- also known as unpledged delegates -- be required to vote along with the electoral majority of their state.

Eighteen months removed from a protracted presidential primary fight, a group of Democrats gathered by President Obama has recommended that the party effectively eliminate the influence of so-called superdelegates by redefining their voting power. The Democratic Change Commission, which was convened last August to examine the nominating process, is recommending that superdelegates -- also known as unpledged delegates -- be required to vote along with the electoral majority of their state.

Here in Confab City, you can't swing a messenger bag without hitting a blogger; the place is lousy with them. Hundreds are credentialed; here's one worth clicking on. Your blog: DemConWatchBlog.com , born November 2005 Your real job : IT specialist Your blogger name, and why: Oreo. ("That's what I've been called since I was kid. Oreo sounds like my last name. ") Your real name: Tom. ("Please just put Tom. Work reasons. You never know how people are going to react.

In presidential election years, Americans see the face of a political party most clearly in the personality, views and character of its presidential candidates. But a national political party is about more than just the president. Its senators and House members pass the nation's laws and budgets. Its governors lead the states. All must work together for progress in America. I chaired the 1982 Democratic Party Commission on Presidential Nominations that created certain automatic delegates to the Democratic convention -- the "superdelegates.

All that online pressure, all the instant messages on AIM and Gchat, all those YouTube comments and Facebook messages and wall posts added up to something: Two more delegates for Sen. Barack Obama. In a YouTube video posted shortly before midnight yesterday, Lauren Wolfe and Awais Khaleel, who as president and vice president of the College Democrats of America are among the youngest Democratic superdelegates, endorsed Obama. In the two-minute video, Wolfe said: "We've received over 5,000 e-mails . . . hundreds of...

Maryland Democratic Party Vice Chairman Lauren Glover is fielding calls from Sen. Barack Obama. Jim Leaman, executive director of the Virginia AFL-CIO, is being inundated with personal letters and e-mails from supporters of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. And D.C. Council member Harry Thomas Jr. just wants to be left alone. Pressure is mounting on the 67 Democratic superdelegates from the District, Maryland and Virginia to choose between Obama and Clinton in the most heated presidential nomination fight in a generation.

Top fundraisers for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton 's campaign upbraided House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) yesterday for suggesting that Democratic superdelegates should back the candidate with the most pledged delegates and urged her to respect the right of those delegates to back whomever they choose at the end of the primary season. The criticism represented the latest effort by Clinton's campaign and its allies to beat back talk that Sen. Barack Obama ...

Former Montana senator John Melcher said he hadn't felt any urgency to take sides in the race between Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama until late last month, when Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean called on superdelegates to make up their minds by July 1. "So after two days of that, I agreed with him that maybe I should, so I did," said Melcher, who announced Wednesday that he will support Obama, based on...

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley squared off on national television yesterday against Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, with the two Democrats talking up their preferred candidates for president and offering different takes on the role of superdelegates. Appearing on ABC News's "This Week," O'Malley touted New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's "experience and strength" and brushed off her losses in the Louisiana primary and the Washington and Nebraska caucuses Saturday. "This has been a year of shifting...

Harold Ickes is the prototypical insider, a career political operative who knows as much about how Washington works as anyone. Just don't ask the former Clinton White House official and Democratic superdelegate what ward he lives in. "Oh boy," Ickes said recently by phone. "It's either 2 or 7. I live in Georgetown. " Or who represents him on the D.C. Council. "Don't know. " Or the name of the public schools chancellor. "I don't know the name, an Asian woman. " If Ickes isn't plugged into the local...

Sen. Barack Obama 's presidential campaign will call next week for the creation of a commission to revise the rules for selecting a presidential nominee in 2012, with a goal of reducing the power of superdelegates, whose role became a major point of contention during the long battle for the Democratic nomination between Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton . The commission also will be urged to redraw the nominating calendar for 2012 to...

In a campaign of near-deaths and premature obituaries, the night of May 6 will be remembered inside Hillary Rodham Clinton 's campaign as the moment it really ended. The staff had settled into the war room at the campaign's Arlington headquarters. Mexican food, as always, had been ordered. The candidate was in Indianapolis. All anticipated another good night in a campaign that had put together an impressive streak of big-state primary victories in Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania over the previous two months.

Jan. 18: Chelsea Clinton leaves first voice mail. "I'm really hoping that you'll decide to support my mom. " * * * Jan. 23: Hillary Clinton leaves first voice mail. "Hi, Heather. It's Hillary Clinton calling. . . . I want to talk about you having a leadership role on my Maryland team. " * * * April 21: Barack Obama calls. "It's time to stand and be counted like the rest of the nation that's behind me. " * * * May 6: Obama surrogate Melissa Etheridge during a phone...

The novelty of famous suitors and media interviews long ago eroded into exhaustion, and now state Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter of South Carolina is just plain sick of all this. An undecided superdelegate to the Democratic National Convention in August, she opens her e-mail inbox each morning and deletes a handful of threatening notes sent by strangers. Campaign followers call her incessantly. She struggles to find time to run her own campaign for reelection. Like many of the other 150 or so superdelegates who remain...

Is tonight the night? Will Barack Obama, having made a great show of going to the site of the Republican convention, be able to claim the Democratic nomination? Will the pundits finally be able to write finis to this chapter? Will Montana and South Dakota matter? Will people tune in to watch nonstop coverage of the 49th and 50th primaries? I don't know. It does feel like we're on the verge of something. But all the tea-leaf reading is a bit comical. Hillary Clinton aides going on vacation-- this must be it !

Total Delegates Democrats Obama 1,275 Clinton 1,220 Republicans McCain 843 Huckabee 242 Delegates needed for nomination: 2,025 in Democratic Party, 1,191 in Republican Party. The above totals are based on estimates from the Associated Press, which includes delegates won in primaries and caucuses as well as superdelegates.

The White House launched an unusual attack on a national news network yesterday for its editing of an interview with President Bush, whose controversial speech comparing negotiations with Iran to the appeasement of Nazis has prompted debate in Washington and on the presidential campaign trail. In a letter to NBC News President Steve Capus, presidential counselor Ed Gillespie complained that a report on the "Today" show distorted Bush's remarks last week to the Israeli Knesset and did not include the president's objections to...

Sen. Barack Obama will return to Iowa tonight to celebrate another milestone in his long and sometimes bitter battle against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who shows no signs of dropping her effort to convince party leaders that she would be a stronger Democratic nominee for president. But the reality is that both sides have declared an effective cease-fire as they prepare to bring the party together for a general-election campaign against Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Obama (Ill.)