No, not really. Clinton has, to date, suffered remarkably few defections. She's not losing ground here; neither is she bleeding a significant number of superdelegates. It's simply that Obama has been adding them at a far greater clip.

The most interesting event of the past 24 hours, I think, has been the Kossack fundraising drive for Kentucky's Rep. Ben Chandler. Since he came under attack for endorsing Obama, they've combined on ActBlue to funnel roughly $20k of donations to him. For a guy who didn't even have an ActBlue page until yesterday, and who's remarkably reliant on PAC money for his campaign funds, gaining more than 600 small-dollar donors is a major boon.

I think there's been a tendency among many in the media to be a little bit shallow in their assessments of superdelegate motivations. Ticket-splitting is a fact of life for Democratic officials in red states; without it, they never would have been in office in the first place. So the key question, for most of these guys, isn't whether Obama or Hillary will draw more support in November in their districts; it's from whence that support will come.

Hillary turns out the base vote of both parties. If you're a blue state Dem, that's fantastic - it's all you need. If you're a red state Dem, that's potentially fatal. Even if every committed Democrat goes to the polls, there aren't enough to outweigh every committed conservative. Besides which, Chandler can turn out the Democratic base without too much assistance in his own district - so Clinton adds relatively little value, and brings a significant cost. Obama, on the other hand, expands the electorate, drawing more young voters, more black voters, and more independents to the polls. These are folks who might not otherwise turn out to vote.

So that changes the demographic equation. Ben Chandler isn't worried that his support for Obama is going to cost him the working class white voters who constitute much of his political base. They may grumble, but in the end, even those who choose McCain over Obama this year but who supported Chandler in the past are likely to vote for him again. So Obama's liabilities are not the same as Chandler's. But the new voters Obama draws to the polls will also cast their ballots for Chandler, thus expanding his base of support. And Obama, even at the height of l'affaire Wright, lacks Hillary's cachet among the conservative base. So even in a state where Hillary runs well ahead of Obama in both the primary and the general, it may well be to the advantage of a local elected official to have Obama at the head of the ticket. Not because he'll ride Obama's coattails in a classic sense, but because their strengths are complimentary.

That's a calculation that's been very much in evidence this cycle. It also explains why we've seen so many fence-sitters in congress. Claire McCaskill has been abundantly clear that most of these have already privately committed to Obama. They have little to gain in their districts from announcing this support prematurely, but will step in under the cover of an Obama win in the cause of party unity. Because when push comes to shove, they have everything to gain from an Obama candidacy, and quite a bit to lose with Hillary topping the ticket.

And that's why Ben Chandler is such an interesting example. If Obama supporters can make it clear that supers actually have something to gain from stepping forward and endorsing now, we may see some more take the plunge. If Chandler becomes a cautionary tale among other red-state supers ("I'm waiting - Chandler endorsed, and he got 300 angry calls") then we won't see much movement until early June, after another month of bloodshed.

What electeds their understand

Problem is, SDs can change their minds, as I'm sure Hillary will be telling us as she flails about for reasons to continue her campaign after June 3.

(I smacked around this racism before - here is the remix)

"eh, Wright exemplifies several key AA attributes:"

..when a post starts of with that little gem, you just know that the author masturbates to Mein Kampf and endorses cross burnings..

"dignitude: an excessive concern with one's own dignity and an aggressive approach to defending it"

This seems to be a quality of all proud people, regardless the color.

"confusion of use of big words with intelligence, throwing out long winded verbiage, hoping people will think you're smart"

This is just your way of saying that your feeble mind couldn't keep up with Wright, its ok, the public school system can be a bitch.. That being said, even though I disagree with Wright, I'd bet you a thousand dollars and a desperately needed liver that a guy with 3 degrees and who can speak 5 languages is smarter than you. Actually, judging by your incoherent ramblings, that bar is lower than midget limbo contests.

"paranoia mixed with utter complete fucking ignorance, leading to crazy apeshit theories about how the world works"

..this coming from someone who obviously doesn't know how the world works. Because of things like the Tuskegee experiment, and political actions like COINTERPRO - to say that black folks don't need to be paranoid is pretty silly, even though Wright is a fucking lunatic.

Sorry, I know we shouldn't feed the trolls.

We've been tracking and projecting every week or so here: http://horse-you-rode-in-on.com/2008/04/27/the-thing-that-wouldnt-leave/

Right now next Wednesday looks like an excellent bet.

Oops, I mean nine -- the Politico split was 14 going into today.