The Democratic superdelegate mess is super
confusing. Take Washington State, for example. We have 17
superdelegates, all of them either elected officials or party
operatives who get to cast a vote at the Democratic National Convention
in Denver this August. They’re in a unique position relative to other
delegates in that their votes are not bound to the outcome of any state
nominating contest, and in this cycle that special status could make
them the most important thing in politics. Or not. It’s still
unclear.
The confusion begins here: More than 30 states, including
Washington, have now held caucuses or primaries in order to apportion
pledged Democratic convention delegates. Yet two weeks after “Super
Tuesday,” when most pundits originally thought one candidate would
emerge with a significant majority of pledged delegates, the nomination
fight between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama remains essentially
tied, with one recent count showing only three pledged delegates
separating them. This means the nominating contest could very well end
up being decided at the convention by the more special class of
delegates, the superdelegates—people like Governor Christine
Gregoire, King County Executive Ron Sims, Seattle representative Jim
McDermott, and state Democratic Party chair Dwight Pelz.
Naturally, everyone wants to know: Which way are these
superdelegates leaning? It’s a simple question with a very convoluted
answer that requires a lot of math, a little psychology, and a touch of
prescience. This leads to another part of the confusion.
Consider the case of Representative Jay Inslee, a superdelegate
whose district covers northern King County, southern Snohomish County,
and the Kitsap Peninsula. Inslee is a cochair of Clinton’s campaign in
Washington State and heads up her national task force on energy and the
environment. One would think this would mean Inslee is planning to cast
his superdelegate vote for Clinton at the convention. Not so fast. A
few days after Washington Democrats overwhelmingly favored Obama at
their precinct caucuses, Inslee, through his spokeswoman, told the
Bainbridge Island Review that he had decided to wait and see
how the campaign unfolds before he decides how to vote in Denver. The
immediate armchair psychologist take: Inslee was getting scared of the
wrath of his pro-Obama constituency.
But then, a few days later, Inslee’s spokeswoman said her statements
to the Review had been mischaracterized and that Inslee is,
indeed, committed to voting for Clinton at the convention. Inslee
himself followed that up with a statement saying of his support for
Clinton, “I am well aware that mine is a minority opinion, at least
among those who attended the caucuses.” He then asked for patience on
the part of “those who desire me to immediately switch my position.”
Armchair psychologist second opinion: Inslee is still a bit scared of
the wrath of his pro-Obama constituency, but willing to stay out on a
limb for now.
While Inslee isn’t “immediately” changing his vote, if he does at
some point undergo an Obama conversion—either out of political
need or geniune compulsion—he could move to what one might call
the John Lewis position. Like Inslee, Lewis, a civil-rights hero and
congressman from Georgia, was an early Clinton backer who watched his
district vote overwhelmingly for Obama on Super Tuesday. A week and a
half after the vote in Georgia, Lewis made national news by saying that
his Clinton endorsement doesn’t necessarily equal a convention vote for
her. Which leads to the third part of the confusion: It’s extremely
difficult to count superdelegate votes.
They can change (as with Representative David Scott of Georgia who
recently switched from Clinton to Obama), become conditional (as with
Inslee and Lewis), or cease to exist (as with the February 11 death of
California representative Tom Lantos) on a moment’s notice. A number of
news agencies have tried to tally up how many superdelegates are
leaning this way or that, and almost every agency has come up with
different numbers. A New York Times survey released on
February 18 put the count at 189.5 superdelegates for Clinton, 142.5
for Obama, and 462 still unpledged. (How can there be half a
superdelegate? The answer has to do with the complicated rules
governing superdelegates from the Democrats Abroad—they each only
get half a vote.)
Thoroughly confused yet?
Now let’s try to do just the Washington superdelegate tally. On the
committed-to-Clinton side, we have Sims, Inslee (sort of),
Representative Norm Dicks, Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell,
and former House Speaker Tom Foley.
On the committed-to-Obama side, we have Governor Gregoire, Pam
Notter (a Democratic National Committee member from Wenatchee), and
Representatives Adam Smith and Brian Baird.
Finally, in the uncommitted column, we have Pelz; state Democratic
Party vice chair Eileen Macoll; DNC members Ed Cote, Sharon Mast, and
David McDonald; and Representatives Rick Larsen and Jim McDermott.
That is, unless anyone else pulls a John Lewis, or even outright
changes his or her mind, in the six months that remain before the
convention.
Which seems a distinct possibility. Barack Obama won
every single county in Washington State during the Democratic precinct
caucuses. That means elected officials such as Cantwell, Murray, and
Sims have nowhere to hide, no place in the state they can point to and
say, “See, that’s the area of Washington that my Clinton endorsement
represents.”
There is a philosophical and procedural argument raging about
whether superdelegates who are elected officials should even care about
representing the will of their constituents at the convention, but the
political reality is that no smart elected official likes being on the
wrong side of his or her core constituency. A core constituency for
Cantwell, Murray, and Sims is committed Democrats, who in this state
far prefer Obama. (An online petition calling for Murray and Cantwell
to change their minds had nearly 8,500 “signatures” as of February
18.)
So far, neither Sims, Murray, nor Cantwell has given any sign that a
shift in position is coming. On February 19, Murray’s spokesperson,
Alex Glass, told me: “She still supports Senator Clinton. She happens
to believe that this race is a long way from over, and she’s optimistic
that voters are going to be making this decision, not superdelegates.”
The same day, Cantwell’s spokesperson, Ciaran Clayton, told me:
“Senator Cantwell is still a strong supporter of Senator Clinton’s and
Cantwell is confident that a decision on the Democratic nominee will be
made before August’s convention.” Translation: They both really
hope a decision is made before the convention so they don’t
have to be the ones making the call.
If Clinton is indeed able to pull ahead of Obama in the next big
contests—namely, Ohio and Texas on March 4—don’t expect
Murray and other Clinton stalwarts to have any political epiphanies.
But if the momentum Obama has caught since Super Tuesday allows him to
build up a noteworthy pledged delegate lead over Clinton through the
next nominating contests, then expect a lot of unpledged superdelegates
to begin shifting to Obama, and expect some more Washington
superdelegates to start sounding like Representative Brian Baird, who
on February 15 endorsed Obama after a long period of fence-sitting.
When I asked Baird whether the Obama-favoring results in his southern
Washington district just six days earlier had influenced his decision,
he replied:
“Yes, of course.” 
