pril 18, 2008
Superdelegates Unswayed by Clinton’s Attacks
By PATRICK HEALY
Throughout their contentious debate on Wednesday, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton tried again and again to put Senator Barack Obama on the defensive in a pointed effort, her advisers say, to raise doubts about his electability among a small but powerful audience: the uncommitted superdelegates who will most likely determine the nomination.
But although Mrs. Clinton gave it her best shot in what might have been their final debate, interviews on Thursday with a cross-section of these superdelegates — members of Congress, elected officials and party leaders — showed that none had been persuaded much by her attacks on Mr. Obama’s strength as a potential Democratic nominee, his recent gaffes and his relationships with his former pastor and with a onetime member of the Weather Underground.
In fact, the Obama campaign announced endorsements from two more superdelegates on Thursday, after rolling out three on Wednesday and two others since late last week in what appeared to be an orchestrated show of strength before Tuesday’s Pennsylvania primary. Obama advisers said that one of the pickups on Thursday, Councilman Harry Thomas Jr. of the District of Columbia, had initially favored Mrs. Clinton, but Clinton advisers denied that, and a Thomas aide said he had been neutral before Thursday.
In interviews, 15 uncommitted superdelegates said they did not believe that recent gaffes by both candidates would carry any particular influence over their final decision. They said they had particularly tired of all the attention, by the Clinton campaign and the news media, on Mr. Obama’s recent comment that some Americans were “bitter” over the economy and chose to “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them” as a result.
And if there were some moments of concern reflected in the debate — the talk of Mrs. Clinton’s high unfavorability ratings, Mr. Obama’s flashes of annoyance — they all doubted that those moments would be deal-breakers, either. Instead, most of the superdelegates said they wanted to wait for the results of at least the next major primaries — in Pennsylvania on Tuesday and Indiana and North Carolina two weeks later — before choosing a candidate.
“I feel like we’ve heard a lot about gaffes as they relate to electability, but what really matters to people is how to deal with the economy and create jobs,” said John W. Olsen, an uncommitted superdelegate from Connecticut and president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. there. “I also want to wait and hear from all of the Democrats in the primaries and caucuses who haven’t had a chance to choose and vote yet.”
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/us/politics/18dems.html?_r=1&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
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