The 2008 Democratic Primary season has come down to that bizarre state called Super. Created by the rules wonks at the DNC back in the early 1980s, Super has both the smallest population (about 720) and the largest delegate haul (about 720). And it will be the Super Primary that decides whether Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee. The highlights:
What and Why is Super?
Does Obama Need Super?
When is the Super Primary?
What Issues Matter in Super?
Playing to the Final Whistle
More after the jump....
What and Why is Super?
The state of Super is, of course, not a real place. It's a metaphor for the superdelegates, specifically the unpledged superdelegates.
Note: Of the 794 superdelegates, only about 720 are unpledged - free to support the candidate of their choice. The other 74 or so are "pledged" or "add-on" superdelegates, their selection based on the results of their states' primaries or caucuses.
While "add-on" superdelegates are classified as superdelegates under DNC rules, they don't live in the state of Super: they're not free to support the candidate of their choice. Only the 720 unpledged delegates really live in the state of Super, that simultaneously smallest and largest of states, whose primary will determine the Democratic nominee.
I've written here about why the state of Super was created. The Democratic leadership, learning the wrong lessons from 1972 and 1980, decided we primary voters were out of step with America, and that they needed a way to overrule us if we witless masses picked a loser. The state of Super is an arrogant, elitist, and undemocratic construct. But it's real, under the current rules. And to win the nomination, either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton must do well enough in the Super Primary to make up for a shortfall among pledged delegates.
Does Obama Need Super?
At present, according to 2008 Democratic Convention Watch, Barack Obama has 1491 pledged delegates, versus Hillary Clinton's 1336. There are 408 pledged delegates left to be awarded among the 9 remaining primaries and caucuses. There are another 65 or so "add-on" delegates to be selected as well.
Even if Obama were to win 100% of the remaining pledged and "add-on" delegates (and he won't), he would have only 1964 pledged delegates, 60 short of the 2024 needed to secure the nomination. So even if he were to do the impossible - win the remaining 9 contests with 100% of the vote - he would still need a few votes from the Super Primary.
Obama doesn't need to "win" the Super Primary - secure a majority of the superdelegates - to clinch the nomination. He didn't win the second-largest state (California), or the third-largest (New York). Like any other state, Obama only needs to pick up enough delegates from Super to get him to the magic number of 2024. How many is that?
The projections for the remaining contests vary with the hopes of those making the projections, but most show the remaining 408 pledged delegates splitting between 200 for Obama and 208 for Clinton to the converse, 208 for Obama and 200 for Clinton. For purposes of discussion, I'll split it down the middle with 204 each, bringing the pledged delegate totals up to 1695 for Obama and 1540 for Clinton. Also for illustration, I will split the 65 remaining "add-on" delegates 32 for Obama and 33 for Clinton.
That yields these pledged delegate totals:
Obama -- 1727, needing 297 votes in Super Primary
Clinton -- 1573, needing 451 votes in Super Primary
When is the Super Primary?
The Super Primary is held at the convention in August, but it allows early voting, or more properly, early-but-non-binding declarations of support. Presently, Hillary Clinton leads the Super Primary by a count of 256 to 234, with about 240 uncommitted superdelegates remaining. If we assume those endorsements will hold - that all of them will actually vote their endorsement at the convention - we get the present totals of 1725 delegates for Obama versus 1592 for Clinton.
Note: The residents of Super are not bound by their own endorsements, any more than voters are bound by their responses to pre-primary polling. Several early Hillary Clinton endorsers have switched their endorsements over to Barack Obama, including Georgia's John Lewis and New Jersey's Donald Norcross and Dana Redd. There have been others, but I'm not going to Google them all.
Assuming a 204-204 split among the remaining pledged delegates, and that the current endorsements will hold until the Super Primary, we get:
Obama -- needs 63 of 240 votes remaining (26%) in Super.
Clinton -- needs 195 of 240 votes remaining (81%) in Super.
What Issues Matter in Super?
The voters in Super, like any of us, base their decisions on a variety of issues. Some will vote for the pledged delegate leader. Some will vote for the popular vote leader. Some will vote for the candidate who won their state or district. Some will vote for the candidate with whom they most agree on policy. Some will vote based on past allegiances.
And a lot of them - probably most of those still uncommitted - will vote their personal risk:reward calculus. That is, which candidate is likely to best reward their support and/or most severely punish their non-support. The rewards and punishments range from appointments in the candidate's administration to campaign finance support to being "kept in (or out of) the loop" when policies and strategies are fashioned.
While it's hard to predict whether Barack Obama would be more generous in rewarding his supporters, I think it's clear that Hillary Clinton would be more ruthless in punishing her non-supporters. She has a long record of such vindictiveness, and that's a big reason some voters in Super have held back on endorsing Obama. Their thinking runs like this:
"If I endorse Obama, and his campaign has some kind of meltdown before the convention, and Clinton gets the nomination and wins in November, my political career is toast. She will stop at no lengths to bury me. But Obama seems to be cut of a different cloth. He's not vindictive, and he will understand if I hold back until it's clear that he's the winner."
While it's easy for us on the outside to call that cowardice, it's a very real calculation for the voters in Super. And I suspect they're judging the candidates correctly in that regard. Barack Obama is a more forgiving politician than Hillary Clinton. That's part of why so many of us support him. And I don't want him to change that.
Still, that issue makes it more difficult for Obama win over voters in the state of Super. So he must win them over by being and remaining a winner.
Playing to the Final Whistle
Barack Obama - and we, his supporters - can't simply "run out the clock." He - and we - can't expect coast on past victories. To sway those last necessary 63 voters in Super, Obama must:
(1) Win big where he should be strong: Guam, North Carolina, Montana, South Dakota, and Oregon; and,
(2) Win or keep it close in Indiana and Puerto Rico. Indiana borders his home state of Illinois, but has demographics similar to those of Ohio and Pennsylvania. Puerto Rico is his last chance to demonstrate appeal among Hispanic voters.
Team Obama - and that includes us, his supporters - must keep playing to the final whistle. We can't expect Team Clinton to concede defeat. And we can't expect the voters of Super to end it because, we think, we've already done enough to win. (Ask the Philadelphia Flyers how that worked for them last night in Montreal.) We have to keep donating, keep phone-banking, keep canvassing, keep doing the things that got Team Obama to this point.
We have to play to the final whistle.