'Super delegates' feel pressure of tight Clinton-Obama race
DAYTON, Ohio -- Rhine McLin is a woman in demand.
Actress Alfre Woodard has phoned McLin, the mayor of Dayton, to chat about Woodard's presidential choice, Barack Obama. So has Obama's wife, Michelle. Hillary Rodham Clinton and her husband each have tried twice to speak to McLin about the race, but the mayor won't return their calls. So many people want to bend McLin's ear that her phone messages at the office are littered on her chair, while her e-mail account and home answering machine are stuffed with entreaties.
McLin is a coveted "super delegate" — the Democratic elected officials and party insiders who can vote for the presidential candidate of their choice at the national convention and are not bound by the outcome of a primary or caucus.
With Obama and Clinton locked in an intense battle for the Democratic presidential nomination, McLin and the 794 other super delegates could be key to deciding their party's closest nomination fight in two decades.
"This is the first time I've ever known that I have counted," says McLin, 59, a super delegate since she was appointed to a Democratic National Committee seat 20 years ago. Today, she is among the elite delegates because she is vice chairwoman of the Ohio Democratic Party.
The battle for super delegate votes has moved from a quiet affair to a fever pitch as Obama has strung together 11 primary and caucus victories since the "Super Tuesday" contests Feb. 5, cutting into Clinton's once-strong support among women, Hispanics and low-income Americans.
Former president Bill Clinton has said the Ohio and Texas primaries on Tuesday are must-wins for his wife. Even so, the Democratic Party's complex rules for allocating delegates make it unlikely that Obama or Hillary Clinton can secure the nomination just by winning the remaining primaries.
So the phone calls to McLin have ranged from the earnest — "It would mean a lot to have your support," Hillary Clinton says in a message the candidate left at the mayor's house — to pleading: "If there's anything we can do to bring you over to his side, please let us know," says David Wilhelm, a former DNC chairman and Obama backer.
Clinton leads among super delegates, but some prominent ones who were in her corner early are changing their minds.
"I want to be on the side of the people," says Rep. John Lewis, an icon of the civil rights movement whose Georgia district voted strongly for Obama on Feb. 5. Lewis, an influential member of the Congressional Black Caucus, endorsed Obama last week.
McLin is not swayed to back someone because of Lewis, or any of the intense outreach, and admits she's skeptical of the whole thing.
She's determined "not to lose sight of who I am and say, 'Wow, this is exciting,' " says McLin, adding she understands the campaigns are reaching out simply because she holds a position of power — even temporarily.
"These national people are not going to call me again," she says.
'Ping-ponging back and forth'
For McLin, the choice is agonizing.
As a woman, she feels a kinship with Clinton in her bid to become the nation's first female president. As an African-American whose late father was a legendary figure among black politicians in Ohio, McLin says she's drawn to Obama's quest to become the nation's first black president.
"I'm ping-ponging back and forth," she says. "When will I see, in my lifetime, a woman rise to this level? But when will I see another African-American come so far?"
On her desk she has saved a stack of 15 messages from national party leaders such as Terry McAuliffe, Clinton's campaign chairman. As then-Democratic National Committee chairman, McAuliffe campaigned for McLin during her first run for mayor in 2001. A dozen more messages are saved on her home answering machine, including one from Obama's wife, Michelle. "We really want your public endorsement," she says.
The overtures began last fall, but McLin hasn't returned a single phone call from a national party figure. "I just figured no contact, no conflict," she says.
McLin says she is not likely to make a decision before Tuesday's Ohio primary, when 141 pledged delegates will be allocated, second only to Texas that day.
"As the mayor, I have to make decisions all the time," McLin says later. "This is one time when I think I have to sit back and let others decide."
Some of Ohio's 21 super delegates have made their preferences known. Gov. Ted Strickland supports Clinton. Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory and Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson have endorsed Obama.
Obama, a first-term Illinois senator, leads Clinton in popular votes and pledged delegates that have been awarded proportionally through the results of nominating contests. He says super delegates should abide by the outcome of contests in their states.
"It would be problematic for the political insiders to overturn the judgment of the voters," Obama said last month at a news conference.
But Clinton, who as a former first lady has strong ties to party leaders across the nation, holds the advantage among super delegates.
She says super delegates are free to make up their own minds. "Super delegates are by design supposed to exercise independent judgment," Clinton told reporters last month.
So far, 437 of the 795 super delegates have made a public commitment about their presidential choice, according to the latest Associated Press tally. The wire service interviews super delegates to determine their preferences.
It takes 2,025 delegates to win the nomination. Obama leads Clinton, 1,385 to 1,276. But Clinton has more super delegates, 241 to 196.
'Uncharted territory'
Even before the first vote was cast, this presidential contest was shaping up to be historic.
It's the first time since 1928 in which no sitting president or vice president is seeking his party's nomination. Fundraising records were broken last year and new ones in different categories are being set this year. Voter participation in primaries and caucuses is high, reflecting an enthusiastic and engaged electorate.
But few predicted the Democratic contest would be this close — or that it could turn on the votes of super delegates.
The super delegates have emerged as "the critical constituency in the nomination," says Michael Cheney, a senior fellow at the Institute for Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois at Springfield. "No one expected the super delegates to have such a significant role."
Anthony Corrado, a political scientist at Colby College in Maine, says the role of these party elites is unprecedented. "The public is watching very carefully to see what party leaders decide," he says.
Democrats created super delegates in 1982 to serve as a counterweight to party activists who had helped nominate dark-horse candidates such as George McGovern in 1972. The move guaranteed that party insiders — governors, members of Congress, state party leaders and DNC members — would get their voices heard at the convention with a vote.
Today, super delegates represent nearly one-fifth of all delegates going to the national convention in Denver on Aug. 25-28.
The Republican Party has 466 delegates who are not bound by primary or caucus results and get a presidential vote at the national convention in St. Paul on Sept. 1-4.
In 1984, Democratic super delegates helped former vice president Walter Mondale cement the nomination over Gary Hart. But never before the 2008 race have super delegates come so close to making history.
If a clear Democratic leader has not emerged by the time Puerto Rico holds its primary June 7, the party's last nominating contest, super delegate Elaine Kamarck says there is only one group that can break such a logjam.
"Somebody's got to break the tie," says Kamarck, who supports Clinton. "The group that would be the most obvious to do it are super delegates."
Kamarck, a senior policy adviser in Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign, notes that super delegates are unlikely to subvert the will of voters. But she's not sure. "We are in uncharted territory," she says.
Democratic strategist Tad Devine, who ran Mondale's delegate-tracking team in 1984, says Tuesday's primaries could be the "tipping point" for the holdouts. If Obama does well, he says, super delegates "will move his way in large blocks."
Devine says a big win for Clinton in either Ohio or Texas would mean that super delegates likely will wait until Pennsylvania's April 22 primary to decide. Either way, he predicts the delegates will choose well in advance of the August convention.
The prospect of being a power broker is not one McLin savors. "I'm really not a political animal," she says. "I wish it would all go away."
The candidates' aggressive courting of McLin "just cracks me up," says Nan Whaley, a 32-year-old graduate student who serves with McLin on the five-member Dayton City Commission and is a close friend.
"We'll spend part of the day doing something like meeting with the prison warden and then the mayor will announce that 'Bill Clinton just called me and wants me to support his wife.' It's quite surreal to us."
Lobbying not enough
McLin came to politics by an unusual route. She was appointed in 1988 to fill the state House seat left vacant by the death of her father, C.J. McLin, who served 22 years in the Ohio General Assembly. At the time, she was running the family's funeral home in Dayton.
McLin rose to become the first black woman elected to the Ohio Senate and the first African-American woman to serve as the Senate minority leader.
In 2001, she was elected to her current post, serving as the chief executive and cheerleader in chief for a city with a shrinking population and the third-highest home foreclosure rate in Ohio. In the past 20 years, Dayton and its surrounding county lost about half the manufacturing jobs that form the backbone of the area's economy.
Despite Dayton's needs, McLin says she won't trade her presidential support for help back home. "I've never thought about it in such a selfish way," she says.
The mayor's post isn't particularly glamorous. There's no car or driver or entourage. It's a part-time position, paying $46,000 a year. McLin is on the job each day, piloting her four-wheel drive Saturn Vue to appointments. She's so busy that even her trademark collection of hats serves a practical purpose, she says. "I tell people when they hug me, 'Don't knock off the hat. My hair might not be combed,' " McLin jokes.
On a recent day when her schedule is full of commitments, she can't escape the politicking. After a busy morning, McLin heads to a downtown restaurant for a rare lunch break. Before she's in the door, she's stopped by an Obama supporter.
State Rep. Clayton Luckie wants her to appear at an upcoming event with Obama. McLin demurs. "If you show up, it will be interpreted as an endorsement," she tells USA TODAY.
Three hours later, the mayor is presiding over the ribbon-cutting for an Italian restaurant and runs into Tom Jonak, a retired Air Force colonel. "I hear you're a super delegate," he says. Jonak confides that he's leaning toward Obama.
At 5 p.m., McLin strides into the county's Democratic Party headquarters, where the annual fundraiser for Montgomery County Auditor Karl Keith is in full swing. Within 10 minutes of McLin's arrival, her successor in the state senate, Tom Roberts, buttonholes her about attending the opening of Obama's headquarters in downtown Dayton that night. She declines.
Roberts is not perturbed or surprised that his friend has refused to pick a side. "She doesn't like to be pressured," he says. "You plant your seed. You make your best arguments, and then you back off and give her time."
While her friends snack on pizza, McLin steals away to the powder room to return a flood of cellphone calls. "This is a decision I've got to make on my own," she says to one Cleveland political consultant who has called to lobby for Obama.
By 6 p.m., McLin is heading back to City Hall, walking briskly through falling snow. More messages await.
McAuliffe has called again, this time to invite McLin to attend the grand opening of Clinton's Dayton headquarters. She doesn't call him back.
"Nobody can really lobby me in such a way that it makes any difference," she says.
The mayor says she'll listen to people she respects in Ohio and follow news accounts of the campaigns, as she tries to determine who can be most effective in the White House.
"Well, I've got all these important people's cellphone numbers now," McLin says with a chuckle. "But once this moment goes, it's gone. … Never again will something like this happen to a Rhine McLin in Dayton, Ohio."