It's Hard Out Here for a Superdelegate

Rep. James Clyburn delivers remarks to the Building and Construction Trade Department, AFL-CIO, during its 2007 Legislative Conference.

Mannie Garcia, AFP/Getty Images

I'm only being a bit tongue in cheek.

Democratic-party superdelgates make up a fifth of the votes needed to decide whether Senator Obama or Senator Clinton gets the top seat on the Democratic ticket. As we spoke about earlier this week with Donna Brazile, that is turning off even some superdelegates.

Plus, our political booker pulled up this example of someone who might be having a little TOO much trouble choosing. Here's part of an article today from the Associated Press:

Sarah Swisher, a superdelegate and member of the SEIU from Iowa City, had committed to Edwards. After he quit the race, she switched to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, but she changed her mind again after her union endorsed Obama. "That will be kind of cool," Swisher said. "I will have supported all three."

Today we spoke with Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina, the House Majority Whip.

He told us that he's willing to vote against his constituents -- that is, to use his vote as a superdelegate for Hillary Clinton. He is STILL making up his mind though, and we asked him if people were calling for his vote (YES) and what they were saying. Here's what he said:

Oh, they remind me of what the voters did in my congressional district and wanting to know whether or not I'm ready to reflect the will of my congressional district to further Obama's interests, and there's some people who want to know that to see whether or not I've got enough guts to vote the other way. And I can tell you, I do have enough guts to vote the other way if I thought that was in the necessary... that was in the interest of nationalizing our party. And I think that's what my voters would want me to do.

You know, a lot of things can change after the primary. I don't know why people keep dealing with that. Next week, something might jump out that's serious and even that will cause some of the people to rethink how they cast their votes on February the 5th. We already have people who are superdelegates who are now rethinking their commitments that they made two and three months ago because the circumstances have changed.

Rep. Clyburn also said, "This is a very, very unusual election year. And nobody could have anticipated any of what has happened."

... including the idea that BLACK elected representatives would be torn between backing a black man and a white woman in the race for the White House.

Farai Chideya

Tags: Election 2008 | superdelegate

4:39 PM ET | 02-15-2008 | permalink

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