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This seems like a big deal. From The LA Times:
Hillary Rodham Clinton, stung last week by the defection of a prominent superdelegate, could lose the backing of more of these Democratic Party leaders and elected officials if she fails to make significant gains in the remaining month of presidential nominating contests, several California superdelegates said this weekend.Two of the five superdelegates aligned with Clinton who spoke at the annual California Democratic Convention here said they would reconsider their support if rival Barack Obama maintained his lead in elected delegates and the popular vote after the last contests on June 3.Though Obama seems more embattled than he did a month ago, the math is harder for Clinton to make up with every passing day. The uncommitted superdelegates are a particular class of superdelegates: They have no strong allegiances to either candidate and have been uninterested in making an early endorsement, or folding to the current crush of pressure and making a late endorsement. As Timothy Noah has correctly pointed out, this suggests they are uncommitted because they mean to follow the expressed will of the process, rather than act as freelancers. They have, in any case, exhibited precisely zero interest in making brave, counter-intuitive endorsement decisions. So they're likely to drift in the direction of the numerical winner, which is almost guaranteed to be Obama, for two reasons:1) It is absolutely impossible for Clinton to overtake him in delegates in the remaining primaries. It can't be done. 2) She's far behind in the popular vote. If you add Florida, where neither campaigned, she's still 300,000 votes behind. If you cheat and add Michigan, where Obama wasn't on the ballot, and you give him the "uncommitted" voters (as some Clintonites have suggested), she's still 188,000 votes behind. If you do all of that, and then Clinton wins every remaining contest by 10 points, according to Rick Hertzberg's calculations, she'll still be 160,000 votes behind. And that doesn't even include Obama's caucusgoers, who aren't in the straight popular votes tally. Point being: She's not making up the popular vote either.So that's the math. Obama, meanwhile, needs 1/3rd of the uncommitted superdelegates to win, while Hillary needs 2/3rds. And if her pledged superdelegates begin switching to Obama after June 3rd, then the number she needs grows. Clinton's only real hope is that some scandal emerges that makes Obama literally unelectable -- to the point that his superdelegates abandon his campaign and everyone turns to Clinton in desperation. But that's increasingly unlikely. Which makes Clinton's endless assaults over gas tax holidays and elitism more aggravating. Her path to the nomination is very, very unclear. Her chances to win the nomination exceedingly slim. So it'd be one thing for her to remain in the campaign hoping for a lucky break or influence at the convention. But to continually try and damage the likely Democratic nominee and distract attention from McCain is rather more myopic -- and I say that as someone who does not buy into the idea that she's readying herself for 2012.
