SOUTH BEND, INDIANA — Hillary Clinton's determined campaign to recapture the initiative in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination is being undermined by the cruel truth of numbers.
She must, and she may, win the Indiana primary on Tuesday. If she does, she'll urge uncommitted superdelegates to rally to her cause, arguing that the momentum in the race is now solidly with her. But those superdelegates don't seem to agree.
One of the more influential among them, Joe Andrew, who Bill Clinton appointed chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1999 to 2001, announced Thursday he was switching his support from Ms. Clinton to Illinois Senator Barack Obama.
“This has got to come to an end,” Mr. Andrew told reporters in his hometown of Indianapolis.
Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton laughs as Robert Kennedy Jr., looks on after introducing Ms. Clinton at a campaign rally in Jeffersonville, Ind., on Thursday. (Associated Press)
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“The ship is taking on water right now. We need to patch those holes, heal the rift and go forward to beat John McCain.”
Mr. Andrew was the second Indiana superdelegate to pledge for Mr. Obama this week, following the endorsement of Representative Baron Hill. Mr. Obama has come close to eliminating Ms. Clinton's once-substantial lead among these senior party officials who get to vote at the Democratic National Convention.
He now trails her by just 16 superdelegates, 263-247. There are only about 225 superdelegates left to commit, plus another 60 who will be selected at state party conventions throughout the spring.
Mr. Obama currently leads in the delegate count overall 1,735.5 to the 1,597.5 for Ms. Clinton, according to the Associated Press. A candidate needs 2,025 delegates to secure the nomination. And this week alone, Mr. Obama picked up nine superdelegates, plus three add-on delegates named by the Illinois Democratic Party. Ms. Clinton netted four new superdelegates, while also picking up four add-on delegates from her home state of New York.
Ms. Clinton's only other hope is to win the remaining primaries between now and June 3, narrowing Mr. Obama's lead of about 138 pledged delegates. But because delegates are allotted by proportional representation, a candidate must win a state decisively to create a gain of more than handful of delegates. If current polls hold in Indiana and North Carolina, for example, the gap between Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton in pledged-delegate support will remain essentially unchanged. And Ms. Clinton is running out of states.
The news is not all bad for the Clinton camp. The latest polls show her slightly ahead in Indiana, and she has halved Mr. Obama's lead in North Carolina to seven points. The controversial ramblings of Mr. Obama's former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, earlier this week, have clearly undermined Mr. Obama's campaign, despite his strenuous denunciation of those musings.
“Over the course of the past two weeks … there has been a real movement in the polls and a real change in the dynamics” of the campaign, said Geoff Garin, chief strategist with the Clinton campaign, in a conference call with reporters.
Both candidates are campaigning furiously. While Ms. Clinton held two rallies and a forum in different parts of Indiana Thursday, Mr. Obama focused on small events. He spoke to residents at a home for senior citizens in Columbia City, addressed a small gathering of locals in the show barn of the fairgrounds in South Bend, visited with a group of veterans in the small hamlet of North Liberty and ended with a visit to a nearby family farm.
“Rural America represents what's best about America,” Mr. Obama said at one of the gatherings. And “the fact that rural America is having such a difficult time indicates that we've lost focus on our values and ideals.”
He talked about the struggles of his maternal grandparents, who grew up in Kansas during the Depression. (Mr. Obama has a relative for every occasion.) “The values that this community shares are the values I grew up with. And I don't want them to fade away.”
Such invocations may or may not be sufficient for Mr. Obama to claim the Hoosier state.
But as this long, long race rounds another turn, Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton are both very aware that the numbers are entirely on his side.
With a report from Associated Press
