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UPDATED: Clinton: Pledged delegates are "like superdelegates"

I tried to ask her 1) What she would do if Obama still has more delegates and votes when the primaries end in June and 2) What argument could she make to the unpledged superdelegates to give her the nomination if Obama does end up the choice of primary voters and caucus goers. To be honest, I didn't feel she answered either question and she also made an odd statement that I hadn't heard before, insisting that pledged delegates are free to vote for any candidate, just like the superdelegates.

    by Will Bunch | Columnist
    Published 

One final note from the Daily News editorial board session with Sen. Hillary Clinton today: Near the end of the session, I had the chance to ask her what essentially was a two-part question, based on recent stories in the Politico and elsewhere that have crunched the pledged delegate and popular vote numbers and found the odds that she can pass Sen. Barack Obama are very slim. I tried to ask her 1) What she would do if Obama still has more delegates and votes when the primaries end in June and 2) What argument could she make to the unpledged superdelegates to give her the nomination if Obama does end up the choice of primary voters and caucus goers.

To be honest, I didn't feel she answered either question and she also made an odd statement that I hadn't heard before, insisting that pledged delegates are free to vote for any candidate, just like the superdelegates. She said, "We don't know what's going to happen between now and early June," and she went into a riff about the unfairness of the Michigan and Florida situation. Then she said:

I just don't think this is over yet, and I don't think that it is smart for us to take a position that might disadvantage us in November. And also remember that pledged delegates in most states are not pledged. You know, there is no requirement that anybody vote for anybody. They're just like superdelegates.

But what, I asked, would she say to a pledged delegate to convince him or her to switch:

I just think it's a very dynamic process, and all these people haven't voted - most importantly Pennsylvania hasn't voted, so why do people want to shut it down? My husband didn't wrap up the nomination until June, and in June he was running third behind President Bush and Ross Perot - elections are dynamic and the idea that you could make some decision now...and furthermore superdelegates are just as legitimate as any other delegates. I mean, they're there for a purpose, they're not just window dressing. They re told to exercise their independent judgment, you know. Some support me in states I didn't win. Some support Senator Obama in states he didn't win. So you could argue that you can't do that, that Governor Richardson shouldn't be supporting him, that I won New Mexico - under the Obama theory, right?

But I still wanted to know her case for switching. She went on:

There are different ways to become a delegate, there are delegates from caucuses, there are delegates from primaries, and there are the appointed delegates, they're all equal, they all have an equal vote - those are the rules of the Democratic Party. Now if you don't like the rules, change them going forward but those are the rules. And they are there for a purpose, because if you go back and look 30 years ago, people were elected to Congress said, 'Wait a minute, this party is not running winning elections. We need to have a say, with all due respect,' so, they have a say. You know, the goals are very conveniently being interpreted, you know - Michigan shouldn't count because of the rukes and and we shouldn't count the superdelegates even though the rules... You know, I think that doesn't make sense.

I'm not sure her plan for pledged delegates make sense either. It's true that many are not legally bound, but the candidates go to great lengths to ensure that pledged delegates are loyal and enthusiastic supporters, in part for just that reason, to prevent switching. Clinton's statement didn't directly say that her campaign would go after Obama's pledged delegates, but it sure implied that, and that would be a switch from their earlier position. Just two weeks ago, Clinton's campaign aides denied to the Politico's Ben Smith that there was any plan to poach Obama's pledged delegates.

So what was the senator talking about, then, if not that?

I have no idea.

UPDATE: Newsweek's Michael Isikoff has more on this.