McCaskill: Most "undecided" superdelegates in Congress have privately committed to Obama

Brutal if true, and it might not be. McCaskill’s an Obama supporter who may be seeing what she wants to see; it’s unclear how many of the “undecideds” she canvassed before coming to this conclusion, so the sample may be off; and of course the supers are free to uncommit at any time, so this could all change if the Wright thing turns into landslide margins for Hillary. But if it doesn’t, and McCaskill’s sense is accurate, then we’re at endgame.

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While more than 80 Democrats in the House and Senate have yet to state their preferences in the race for the Democratic nomination, sources said Tuesday that most of them have already made up their minds and have told the campaigns where they stand.

“The majority of superdelegates I’ve talked to are committed, but it is a matter of timing,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.). “They’re just preferring to make their decision public after the primaries are over. … They would like someone else to act for them before they talk about it in the cold light of day.”

Obama currently holds an 18-13 lead among committed superdelegates in the Senate, while Clinton holds a 77-74 lead in the House. Asked which way the committed-but-unannounced superdelegates are leaning, McCaskill — who has endorsed Obama — said: “James Brown would say, ‘I Feel Good.’”…

[S]upporters of both Clinton and Obama say that the lobbying for congressional superdelegates seems to have decreased in recent weeks.

McCaskill said that the campaigns have all but given up on lobbying her Senate colleagues because they know their minds are made up.

Revisit this post from yesterday for the back of the envelope math. Even if the roughly 90 or so undecided congressional superdelegates split equally between them, that leaves Hillary with a 140-delegate deficit and only 210 or so undecided supers (most of whom come from the DNC) left to make it up. She’d have to win 175 of them — 83 percent — just to pull even. In sports parlance, there are two minutes left and Obama has both the lead and the ball; all he has to do is make sure he doesn’t fumble any handoffs while he’s running out the clock. Hope springs eternal that the not-so-crack Clinton oppo research team is preparing to drop another surprise and force that fumble, but let’s face it: If they had anything big on him, they’d have released it by now.

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Exit question: Wright albatross or no, you sure you’d rather run against Obama? Let Operation Chaos recommence!

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