I feel like this is simply a confirmation of what a lot have been saying: Most of Hillary Clinton's Superdelegate lead was from early "jumpers on," and as Barack Obama started winning, the Superdelegates would shift his way.
Let's see...
I first have to say that I am deeply indebted to the 2008 Democratic Convention Watch. I was going to go through and assemble the time frame of the endorsement of all the Superdelegates to be able to graph it, but they did that for me! You can see it here.
It shows Clinton's cut of the Superdelegates going from 71% on 13Jan08 to 59% yesterday (20Feb08). Not too shabby a swing for Obama. Here is their graph plotting Clinton's margin of Superdelegate victory (Number of Clinton Superdelegates minus Number of Obama Superdelegats):
Hmmm... Dropoff starting around the 10th of February... Why, that would be right as Obama was beginning his string of uninterrupted (11 so far) victories.
But I wanted to see what kind of PACE was they were each attracting delegates at. They start with:
Number of Superdelegates (13Jan08)
Clinton 165
Obama 69
This is what we see them adding (on a week by week basis):
20-Jan 27-Jan 3-Feb 10-Feb 17-Feb 20-Feb
Clinton 6 13 14 26 14 0
Obama 8 11 17 22 33.5 7
We see rough parity in gains (about 50/50) through the 10th of February (Clinton adds only ONE more than Obama). But since then the shift in momentum is dramatic! In the last week Obama has outstripped her 2:1 and so far this week it seems that Clinton has gained: ZERO
Nadda over Zip.
Ouch.
Why is this important? Well... the only reason that she is still in this race is because she thinks she can still win with a Superdelegate supermajority, as evidenced by her website the
delegate hub which is obviously intended to persuade the populace that it is acceptable for her to be doing just that. What does she say there?
The Obama campaign is claiming, without precedent or justification, that automatic delegates (commonly referred to as "super delegates") should switch to Sen. Obama en masse based on arbitrary metrics, with the aim of tilting the delegate balance in his favor. The fact is: no automatic delegate is required to cast a vote on the basis of anything other than his or her best judgment about who is the most qualified to be president.
Of course, this line of "attack" is pretty silly, because that is just what she is doing, too: Trying to tilt the delegate balance in her favor.
But, you know what? I actually agree with her. I have said that this is the way the rules were set up by the DNC, and we have to live with them. It would be dangerous for "them" (whoever they are) to do it, but within their rights to do so (decide the convention on a Superdelegate supermajority).
But it seems now like there might be nothing to worry about. No matter what the specific Superdelegates are doing, we can see the general trend. And that is PRECISELY following the will of the people through Obama's victories.
And guess what? Looking at the Superdelegate list (linked above) again, it seems that Obama has added another 3! Hillary has yet to add any this week.
So to recap: This week (since Clinton has launched here Delegate Hub website) she has picked up NO Superdelegates while Obama has picked up 10.
Yes, Superdelegates are going to decide this race, but I think it is clear that they are going to take their lead from us (the voter).