Hillary picks up another much needed superdelegate today in former Pittsburgh Mayor Sophie Masloff. This brings her total to the 243 you see above, and represents one of the few tallies in her column for quite some time.
From Post-Gazette:
“It’s been very difficult for me to sit on the sidelines and fail to support a woman,” [...]

That’s not an exact quote, but it may as well be. Most who’ve been following this race will agree that if she doesn’t take Oregon or North Carolina, she’ll have little chance of winning the popular vote and it’ll then be impossible to persuade the superdelegates to jump off the Obama bandwagon. And since Oregon [...]

That’s among their Senate colleagues where Barack Obama now leads Hillary Clinton 13-11 in endorsements. The latest holdout to go to Obama is fellow freshman Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. That’s just one more superdelegate for Obama in the slow march to his nomination.
Clinton could still pull it out but she’s going to have to [...]

Here he is on CBS this morning…

An aide clarified his statements by saying what he really meant was that he wants this wrapped up before the convention. But hasn’t Hillary been very vocally talking about taking this fight to the credentials committee?
Here’s the thing…she knows she can’t win and my guess is that she’s drawing [...]

From former governor of Tennessee Philip Bredesen comes this intriguing idea for superdelegates like himself:
Here’s what our party should do: schedule a superdelegate primary. In early June, after the final primaries, the Democratic National Committee should call together our superdelegates in a public caucus.
Of the 795 superdelegates, over 40 percent have not announced which candidate [...]

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The Chicago Tribune bemoans the lack of a powerful Democratic party elder who can end the Barack Obama/Hillary Clinton contest. Where are the Clark Cliffords, the Sam Rayburns, the W. Averell Harrimans who advised presidents and stepped in to marshal party disputes? Instead, Democrats have the likes of Al Gore, Jimmy Carter, Howard Dean and, [...]

With superdelegates certain to play a role in the Democratic party presidential nomination and votes in Florida and Michigan not counting, there is a perception in some quarters that a miscarriage of democracy is occurring in the Democratic party. There would be – if the party was at all beholden to democratic principles. It’s not [...]

Hillary needs 97% of the remaining pledged delegates. Obama needs 77%.
What this tells us is that both will need the superdelegates to win.
However, we all know that it’ll be hard to make the case that the superdelegates should go against the will of the voters. So what would it take for Hillary to pull into [...]

From CNN:
(CNN) — In what may be bad news for Clinton, Democrats across all four states overwhelmingly say they want super delegates to vote based on which candidate finishes ahead in the pledged delegate count at the end of the primary season.
Majorities of Democrats in Texas (62 percent), Ohio (61 percent), Rhode Island (57 percent) [...]

Seriously?
Yes, seriously…
Among many “facts” they declare are some accurate ones, such as the idea that superdelegates, which in true nomenclatural dexterity they now term “automatic delegates” “are expected to exercise their best judgment in the interests of the nation and the Democratic Party.”
But then comes this juicy non-fact:
“FACT: Florida and Michigan should count, both in [...]

Veracifier rounds up the Sunday spin.

Long story short…it’s a mess. I really do think that unless Obama starts to blow out Clinton in these upcoming contests, Hillary’s camp is going to try and take the nomination with super delegates. And that will be really, really bad for the Democrats.

They’re really going to go through with it…
A top Hillary Clinton adviser on Saturday boldly predicted his candidate would lock down the nomination before the August convention by definitively winning over party insiders and officials known as superdelegates, claiming the number of state elections won by rival Barack Obama would be “irrelevant” to their decision. [...]

Josh Marshall explains that everybody wants to go with a winner…

So whether it’s Hill or Obama, the remaining SDs are gonna get behind the person who’s winning. That’s Josh’s basic position.
The only issue with that is if somebody is catching up at the end and is within 20 pledged delegates. Then who’s the winner? I [...]

Howard Fineman has the scoop…

Listen, if her camp really thinks they can use the super delegates to capture the nomination, they’re fooling themselves. That is pure political fantasy. Is it technically possible? Sure, but there would be an upheaval in the Democratic party the likes of which can not even be imagined. Would she really [...]

Well, one Democratic insider has already made up her mind…
“If 795 of my colleagues decide this election, I will quit the Democratic Party. I feel very strongly about this,” Donna Brazile told CNN this week.
Brazile, who managed Al Gore’s presidential campaign in 2000, is herself a super delegate.
I agree. Super delegates choosing the nominee would [...]

That’s the word from Mark Halperin:
DNC topper says delegate deadlock is dodo: ”We’re going to have to get the candidates together and make some kind of an arrangement. Because I don’t think we can afford to have a brokered convention.”
But what kind of an arrangement? That’s the key.

Josh Marshall explains as clearly as anybody I’ve heard so far.

The “party operatives and functionaries” thing is what worries me. This could potentially split the Dem party if it comes down to these partisans.
Alan Stewart Carl reminds us that this situation seems quite a bit like the last season of The West Wing…
In the fictional [...]

Chris Bowers does the math and it’s not pretty…
From this point, quick math shows that after Super Tuesday, only 1,428 pledged delegates will still be available. Now, here is where the problem shows up. According to current polling averages, the largest possible victory for either candidate on Super Tuesday will be Clinton 889 pledged delegates, [...]