Earlier in the race it was about delegates. Currently the Clinton campaign stresses the popular vote. At one time Hillary even jokingly suggested gong by bowling scores. Although the Clinton campaign changes the metric by which they claim Clinton should get the nomination there’s one measure which they won’t be using for now–endorsements from their fellow Senators. The endorsement today by New Mexico Senator Jeff Bingaman now gives Obama the lead (14 to 13) over Clinton. In endorsing Obama Bingaman wrote:
Our nation faces a daunting number of critical challenges: reasserting America’s leadership in the world, meeting our needs for energy independence, addressing global warming, making healthcare accessible and affordable, positioning our economy to effectively compete globally, and extricating ourselves from the war in Iraq, to name a few.
To make progress, we must rise above the partisanship and the issues that divide us to find common ground. We must move the country in a dramatically new direction.
I strongly believe Barack Obama is best positioned to lead the nation in that new direction.
The race for Senate endorsements will continue as eighteen Senators still have not made an endorsement. The endorsements to date are under the fold.
Obama:
Sen. Bob Casey (Pa.)
Sen. Kent Conrad (N.D.)
Sen. Chris Dodd (Conn.)
Sen. Byron Dorgan (N.D.)
Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.)
Sen. Tim Johnson (S.D.)
Sen. Edward Kennedy (Mass.)
Sen. John Kerry (Mass.)
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.)
Sen. Patrick Leahy (Vt.)
Sen. Claire McCaskill (Mo.)
Sen. Ben Nelson (Neb.)
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (W.Va.)
Sen. Jeff Bingaman (N.M.)
Clinton:
Sen. Evan Bayh (Ind.)
Sen. Maria Cantwell (Wash.)
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.)
Sen. Daniel Inouye (Hawaii)
Sen. Blanche Lincoln (Ark.)
Sen. Bob Menendez (N.J.)
Sen. Barbara Mikulski (Md.)
Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.)
Sen. Bill Nelson (Fla.)
Sen. Mark Pryor (Ark.)
Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.)
Sen. Debbie Stabenow (Mich.)
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.)
In addition Barbara Boxer and Russ Feingold have stated they will vote for the winner in their state, giving each one additional vote.
I hope there are a lot of superdelegate endorsements leading up to the May 6 contests.
I bet Obama has more to release. More importantly, I hope Obama wins big, causing enough superdelegates to endorse Obama and put an end to this.
I checked out your blog and noted that Google Ads has an ad for “Barack Obama Antichrist.” Naturally I clicked on it in order to waste that advertiser’s money.
It’s funny you mention that. We had a reader that noticed that our google ads bar keeps putting up McCain ads on our site, and that he clicks on it frequently for the exact same reason.
This isn’t over yet, but it would seem that Obama has the upper hand. Watching Howard Dean on Meet the Press he made it clear that he wants all the super delegates to announce by the end of June, and that he would love to see them kind of trickle out between now and then. I think that three are some just waiting for Obama to get back on the winning track so they can announce. That should put him on the way home.
I think many are just waiting for a clear time to endorse, leaving themselves a way to tell the Clintons that it was done because Obama’s nomination was inevitable. If he won in Pennsylvania it could have happened then. If he wins in both Indiana and North Carolina that could get many of them to endorse him.
They don’t even need all of them to endorse him. I read a projection a few weeks ago in which if Obama did as the author expected in the remaining states he would only need about 100 more superdelegates to clinch the nomination. Regardless of the exact number, if he wins enough to clinch the nomination it will be harder for Clinton to remain in the race–although she might try by going by the number needed to nominate if Michigan and Florida are included.