In poker there is a useful concept called the freeroll.
It means pretty much what it sounds like it means. There is a free "roll" or chance that a player can win more than he/she is currently guaranteed to win.
Here's an example. In hold'em, you are dealt two red aces, I am dealt two black aces. There's raising and reraising and we get all our money in preflop. At first it looks like we'll probably tie. But then the flop comes three hearts. You now have a freeroll with two cards to come. You cannot lose to me under any circumstances, but if one more heart comes (which it will about 36% of the time), you will make a flush with your ace of hearts and scoop the whole pot. That's a freeroll - the free chance you get at taking the whole pot, while having zero risk of losing to my hand. On the other hand, I have a negative freeroll.
Understanding times when you have a freeroll, and when it's possible someone else might have a freeroll against you is a part of selecting situational investment opportunities in a game like poker.
So, too, in politics. Right now, Barack Obama supporters are facing a negative freeroll on the question - "Would you support the other candidate as the nominee in the general election?"
Obama supporters don't need to answer this question. It is framed wrongly. All Obama supporters should conscientiously abstain from the question asked that simplistically.
Consider what happens when some Obama supporters - truthfully or not - say they will not vote for Hillary Clinton in the fall if she is the nominee.
It becomes evidence used against Obama to justify Clinton supporters retaliating with their own defection.
It doesn't matter if it's true, if it's false, or even if it's true when you say it but would become false in a tortured moment at the voting booth. None of it matters. Because the data (even anecdotal data) that the question seeks to collect is to be used now, before the nomination, to feed into the information loop about how the nomination will be resolved. Hypotheticals based on unsound framing are toxifying and hardening the partisans.
Consider the reverse. If Obama supporters all say, sure, we'll vote for Clinton, then truthful or untruthful this becomes evidence that Clinton is more electable because she appeals to the whole Democratic base.
You see, there is literally no upside for an Obama supporter to answer this question.
It's a negative freeroll.
There is now unanimous agreement from every single political analyst that Clinton will trail in pledged delegates at the end of this contest. We've finally gotten that reality... realized.
People are finally, slowly starting to catch on that the popular vote is a lost cause for Clinton. Clinton will not have more popular votes, regardless of the merit of using that as the standard. In fact, I specifically wrote a diary that painstakingly walked through the various turnout projections and win percentage margins to demonstrate this, just so I could have a link in this piece of this diary. We need to push a wider understanding of this fact, so feel free to cross-post that diary if you find it valuable.
State parties chose to use open or closed or semi-open primaries, which widely varied the turnout state to state. Some also chose time-honored caucuses as their tool for selecting delegates. You cannot retroactively punish them by giving them a fractional representation because changing the argument after the fact is more convenient for you.
Well, you can. And that is part of the point of this diary. It's legal to persuade superdelegates with such a specious argument, just as it would be legal to then come to Obama supporters, hat in hand in the general, to support such a controversially-selected nominee.
And that is the only realistic circumstance in which Obama supporters should address this issue. The only fair framing of the "will Obama supporters support Clinton" is the realistic one.
To Obama supporters: "Will you vote for Clinton in a general election if superdelegates reverse the state results?"
And, to Clinton supporters: "Will you vote for Obama in the general election if superdelegates ratify the state results?"
To the extent that this discussion is taking place in the media and on blogs, Obama supporters can use their wide netroots advantage over Clinton in informing the debate. I call on all Obama supporters to reject the premise of any "will you support" question as DOA invalid that does not explicitly distinguish this circumstance.
Request that the questioner reframe the question to conform with realistic context.
If the questioner refuses, do not answer.
Do not forfeit a negative freeroll.