I was perusing the superdelegate endorsement list at http://demconwatch.blogspot.com/... when I noticed what appears to be a startling fact: I could not find a single elected official who has endorsed Hillary Clinton since Senator Blanche Lincoln (AR) and Rep. Norman DIck (WA) did so on February 7, two days after Super Tuesday, when the dust was still settling. Conversely, Obama has seen multiple endorsements from elected officials. Presently, Clinton and Obama are running about even on endorsements from elected superdelegates. (See http://www.politico.com/... -- which is actually not up to date and shorts Obama a few recent endorsements by elected officials such as Russ Feingold).
If this is true (or even mostly true), this speaks volumes about two things. First, the obvious: directly elected superdelegates are uniformly (or nearly so) breaking for Obama and have been for weeks. Second, and less obviously, these statistics arguably reveal differing motivations for "insider" DNC members and local/state party operatives, as compared to actual elected public officials. A bit more below the fold.
On the first point, the trend line shows that superdelegates -- at least those who have the public to answer to -- are solidly trending for Obama. There can be numerous reasons for an elected official to endorse -- in the case of Sen. Claire McCaskill (MO), for example, it would be politically difficult for her to support Clinton given Clinton's high negatives in her state. Others have seen an Obama landslide in their state and thus can comfortably say they are doing the will of their voters. But given the solid (or nearly so) nature of the trend at this point, one reasonably could conclude that publicly-elected superdelegates are feeling at least some public pressure and will not be diving into any smoke-filled rooms if the delegate totals, and popular perception (if not the popular vote itself as is currently the case) favor Obama at the end of the day.
On the second point, this disparity between superdelegates who are elected officials vs. other superdelegates further discredits the the argument has been presented by numerous interests (including the Clinton campaign) that superdelegates are in fact part and parcel of the democratic process, and thus they are a legitimate part of the primary process. This argument might have some limited legitimacy with regard to elected public officials, who at least can be called to answer to the public generally, but this is even less defensible with regard to DNC and other party personnel, who have show that they are acting differently than such elected officials. There is a difference, and it's worth some thought whether that is for the good of the party, or not.