From yesterday's Wall Street Journal, I learned superdelegates come in two stripes: 1) sitting politicians, and 2) everyone else.
Which ones have been endorsing candidates lately?
Although Sen. Obama has picked up the endorsement of about 150 superdelegates since early February, many of whom are sitting politicians, recently he has had better luck among nonelected superdelegates. They don't risk the ire of constituents who might have favored Sen. Clinton or another candidate.
A few hold-out pols hail from rural, conservative white districts, the WSJ says. And despite a nice fat contribution from the Obama PAC, some "$10,000 from the Illinois senator's political action committee, federal records show," one Senator facing a tough re-election race told reporters "don't hold your breath" waiting for her to endorse him.
Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu, a Democrat, is expected to face a tough re-election fight in the fall and hasn't endorsed a presidential candidate. Despite her neutrality, the Republican Party has been airing an advertisement on YouTube that poses the question of whether she will endorse Sen. Obama. The ad transposes her picture with his picture and overlays it with a muddy recording of a speech in which he described small-town and working-class voters as "bitter."
From the National Republican Senatorial Committee website:
But fear not, Mary Landrieu - yesterday an Oregon reporter gave Obama (yet) another chance to explain his infamous remarks made in San Francisco. Obama explained rural folks to the Oregon reporter:
Question: Your San Francisco remark about “bitter” rural voters stirred up a hornet’s nest. Much of Oregon is rural. What would you like to say to our rural voters?Answer: The truth is that most people of good will recognize that what I meant may not have come out right. That people are frustrated and angry about their economic situations. That jobs have been shipped away. Entire towns have fallen onto hard times. They rely on the things they can depend on: Their faith, their traditions that have been passed on from generation to generation. But they are justifiably frustrated the government’s not looking out for them. And if we’re going to do our job in Washington to listen to these communities, then we’re going to have a different set of policies, and that’s what this election is about.
Uh huh. There's a fine line between empathizing with a group of people on the one hand, and using a broad brush to explain to that group who they are on the other.
Should Obama stop throwing cash, and lend the Louisiana Senator a hand on the campaign trail? Maybe she doesn't understand her rural constituents the way he does.
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