Thanks to two new endorsements, Sen. Barack Obama now leads Sen. Hillary Clinton in support from superdelegates, by an estimate of 275-273.

This is the first time his support from party officials and insiders - who will ultimately decide this historic presidential primary - surpassed Clinton’s.

Earlier this year, she led the superdelegate race by more than 100.

Obama’s lead in overall delegates is now estimated at 1,866-1,697.

While he will fall short of the 2,025 total delegates needed to win the nomination, Obama will likely clinch a majority of the Democratic pledged delegates if he posts an expected victory in the Oregon primary May 20.

Monday, Obama took the superdelegate lead when he picked up endorsements from Maine Rep. Tom Allen and Dolly Strazar, a Hawaii superdelegate.

“Most of the primary voters across the nation have now spoken. It is time to bring a graceful end to the primary campaign,” Allen said.

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Heading into Tuesday, Sen. Hillary Clinton had to win big in Indiana and do better than expected in North Carolina, keeping that key race close.

Didn’t happen.

In the North Carolina primary, Obama won convincingly, recording an easy 14-percent win and a popular vote margin of more than 200,000.

Meanwhile, Clinton squeaked through in Indiana with one of the narrowest wins of the almost 50 held this year, defeating Obama 51-49 percent.

Hillary Clinton’s chances of defeating Barack Obama dwindled last night.

Based on the margins of victory in North Carolina and Indiana, Obama added to his leads in popular votes and pledged delegates. Including superdelegate estimates, he is currently just 184.5 shy of the 2,025 needed to win the nomination.

Looking ahead, there are some bright spots for the resilient Clinton campaign - but they may not be enough to overcome her remaining deficit.

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A day after their contentious Pennsylvania debate, Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both appeared on Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report.

Host Stephen Colbert remarked that former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards - who dropped out of the race before Super Tuesday - won the debate.

In any event, Obama’s addition to Colbert’s famed “On Notice” board, where he calls out various people and inanimate objects that have drawn his ire, got us thinking of all the stuff we’d like to put on notice lately.

Thanks to this terrific On Notice board generator, we were able to!

1. The McCain Girls were outed as a hoax. Which is funny, but also sad, as we were hoping they really were that unfunny.
2. Forget rural Pennsylvania voters clinging to guns or religion… how effing annoying is it when your socks stick to the rest of your clothes when you take them out of the dryer?
3. Ah, bad credit home loans. Two years ago, a gateway to homeownership, now the scourge of the financial world. Way to get greedy and screw over the whole country, Florida mortgage brokers.
4. The 27 million (to date) Democratic primary voters only represent 3,253 of the 4,049 delegates to the convention. The 796 “superdelegates” are thus 33,913 times more important than you. Let’s hear it for democracy!
5. Not only were George Stephanopoulos’ debate questions dreadful, but his name is so hard to spell, it costs us valuable blogging time daily.
6. As liberals, the obligatory remarks about Ralph Nader costing Al Gore the White House in 2000 will surface from time to time. Deal.
7. Really, Cindy McCain? The Food Network? You don’t have friends you can steal recipes from like everyone else?
8. Forget the ’60s radical group… the ’00s iteration of Weather Underground never gets its forecasts right more than 24 hours in advance.

Conventional wisdom says the contentious battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will go all the way to the August convention.

But Democratic National Committee chairman Dean wants the delegate mess over well before that, possibly before the 10 remaining primaries are even done.

The Washington Times‘ Donald Lambro believes it’s likely.

The scenario Howard Dean and fellow party leaders fear most is a bitter political floor fight in Denver that will divide their own party and send a message to the country that the Democrats can’t even govern … themselves!

His plan calls on remaining undeclared superdelegates (350 or so) to break their neutrality sooner rather than later, providing enough votes to give someone the 2,025-delegate magic number needed to clinch the nomination.

“There is no point in waiting,” Howard Dean said recently, adding that he has been in the process of “talking to a fairly significant number of — by and large — nonaligned people about how we might resolve this.”

Howard Dean hopes the rest of the superdelegates will follow his advice and declare their preference during the coming weeks and effectively end the race.

If Barack Obama can hold his lead, as is likely, he will be close to 2,000 delegates, allowing the superdelegates to possibly him over the top.

As for the Florida and Michigan quagmire, Dean is making it clear that once the nomination race is all but over, there will be a deal in place to seat both of the delegations under a proportional formula … still to be worked out.

Whatever Dean has in mind, it had better happen fast.

While this has been going on, John McCain has tapped strategists and fund raisers, uniting the party and basking in his U.S. personal biography tour.

It may take months before the Democrats entirely get their act together, and how unified it will be remains a huge question.

Meanwhile, John McCain has actually pulled even or ahead in polls, and a once vulnerable GOP believes it can defeat a divided opposition.

With Florida and Michigan delegates in limbo and Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama still fighting, worried Dems are looking to Howard Dean.

They’d better not hold their breath.

The former Vermont governor has tried to carve a neutral path so far, and while his efforts are admirable, something’s gotta give eventually. His take on it:

“I have to chuckle a little bit - the people who are complaining that I’m not taking a stronger role - when you drill down on that a little, I see what you mean. You’d like me to be a strong leader and adopt your point of view and ram it through the DNC. I’m not going to do that - for either side. There are going to be supporters on both sides that are mad at me. I’m going to play this one by the rules.”

Which… pretty much leaves us where we were all along. Man. What happened to the hard-charging Howard Dean? While it would be great theater, there can’t be a second ballot scenario? The longer this drags on, the worse it gets.

DNC Chairman Howard Dean may be treading too carefully.

Meanwhile, Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan proposed a plan earlier that would take into account the January primary and the total popular vote nationwide.

Under the proposal, Clinton would receive 47 delegates, while Obama would be awarded 36 delegates based on votes awarded to “Uncommitted.”

The rest of the Michigan delegates would then be divided according to nationwide popular vote after all primaries are completed. Right now, that would give Obama a slight edge, as he’s won 2.6 percent more total votes nationally.

Obama leads Clinton in delegates, 1,626 to 1,486, but neither will win the 2,025 needed to capture the nomination via primaries. Superdelegates will therefore determine the Democratic nominee, be it later or … much later.

Dean proposed having superdelegates weigh in by July 1 so the party can rally behind a candidate before the convention, beginning August 25 in Denver.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, a neutral superdelegate himself, said Tuesday that he would support such a proposal. We’ll see.

The next battleground is the Pennsylvania primary, which is scheduled for April 22. Clinton is expected to win, although Obama is closing hard.

Indiana and North Carolina, termed the new Pennsylvanias because they may ultimately tip the balance of superdelegate support, follow on May 6.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says her party may be hurt if it fails to nominate the U.S. presidential candidate preferred by Democratic voters.

“If the votes of the superdelegates overturn what happened in the [caucus and primary] elections, it would be harmful to the Democratic Party,” she said.

“It’s a delegate race,” Nancy Pelosi added this weekend on ABC’s This Week. “The way the system works is that the delegates choose the nominee.”

The California Democrat did not mention Sen. Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton by name, but her remarks seemed to suggest she was prepared to cast her ballot at the convention in favor of the winner in pledged delegates.

Obama leads Clinton by about 140 in pledged delegates, having expanded his lead slightly thanks to Iowa Democrats this weekend, but it is unlikely he will end the primary season with the 2,025 needed to win the nomination.

That gives the balance of power to the 796 superdelegates - prominent Democrats who are automatically entitled to attend the convention because of their status as members of Congress, governors of states or other leaders.

Hillary Clinton lead among superdelegates by 30-40 in most counts, though they are free to change their minds and several hundred remain uncommitted.

Pelosi’s comments could influence other House Democrats who are neutral in the presidential race and will attend the convention as superdelegates.

In a declaration that gives a boost to Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi also said that even if one candidate winds up with a larger share of the popular vote than the delegate leader, the candidate who has more delegates should prevail.

With a win in Mississippi Tuesday, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama added a few more delegates to his lead in the race for the Democratic nomination.

But with no elections until Pennsylvania until April 22, his opponent, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, has a powerful ally on her side: time.

The upcoming 5-6 week stretch marks by far the longest pause for Clinton and Obama in this year’s unexpectedly long nomination fight.

That gives Clinton a chance to wage war on Barack Obama without the time pressures that magnify every moment on the trail, allowing her to make a deliberate, methodical case in favor of her candidacy and against his.

Obama has drawn considerable momentum in the race by winning caucuses and primaries - such as Saturday in Wyoming and Tuesday in Mississippi.

But as we saw in the run-up to March 4 primaries in Texas and Ohio, Clinton has proved adept at controlling the race when no one is voting.

Clinton has already stepped up the pressure on Obama, saying he’s not ready to be commander in chief, attacking him over NAFTA and comments by his adviser; and by suggesting publicly that Obama could be her running mate.

The lull in the voting is also likely to include several debates in Pennsylvania, a format in which Barack Obama does well, but Hillary Clinton excels.

It will also allow the Clinton campaign to work to find a way for Florida and Michigan delegates to be seated or have those states’ votes count.

Both states favor Clinton demographically, and any solution that allows the delegations to be seated at the convention is likely to cut Obama’s lead.

Continue reading this article …

By winning the Rhode Island, Ohio and Texas primaries last night, Hillary Clinton undeniably received a huge lift. But what does that really mean?

After all, the numbers are still on the side of Barack Obama. A monumental collapse is needed for Clinton to take the delegate lead away from him.

Likely to fall short empirically, she must change, and sell, the story.

When Georgia Rep. John Lewis switched from supporting Clinton to Obama, he said he wanted to be with the voters and on the “right side of history.”

Obama will bank on the fact that the superdelegates of the Democratic party are not going to overthrow the will of the people. Period.

Hillary Clinton must make her narrative count more than the numbers, and while her delegate deficit wasn’t erased yesterday, she did win some key talking points.

1. She will say Obama can’t close the deal in electorally “big” states, even though he won swing states like Missouri, Colorado, and Wisconsin.

2. She will say Obama isn’t representative of the real Democratic party - the people who believe jobs and health care are the top issues.

While Clinton won more support from blue-collar voters in the March 4 primaries, her victories among them weren’t mandates - low-to-mid single-digits.

3. She will say Obama is a wild card for the November election and (as she does the GOP’s work for it) is risky for the role of commander-in-chief.

This is her most flimsy - yet possibly her most effective - argument.

In the past week, she threw the “kitchen sink” at Obama - calling out his political a$$-covering on NAFTA, his connection to Tony Rezko, and his qualifications to be commander in chief with some TV fear-mongering.

Voters who made up their minds as recently as March 1 voted about 60-40 for Clinton in Ohio and Texas. That’s not a good sign for the Obama camp.

However, none of this changes the fact that Barack Obama will likely finish the primary season with a lead in pledged delegates.

There are 12 and 33 delegates at stake in Wyoming and Mississippi, which vote Saturday and Tuesday, respectively. That’s it until April 22.

Pennsylvania, which holds it primary and awards its 158 delegates then, is the biggest prize left on the calendar and shapes up well for Clinton.

Even so, she currently trails by 130 pledged delegates, a daunting sum to make up in the remaining states with Democratic primaries and caucuses.

This is especially true as a number of Southern and Western states, where Obama has done well, are on the table, potentially canceling Pennsylvania gains.

So unless she can convince the superdelegates to jump ship, Hillary Clinton’s quest for the nomination is practically a moot point.

That doesn’t mean she won’t try to make it happen, though. Better buckle up, because this roller coaster ride could be just beginning.

What if Hillary Clinton wins Ohio but not Texas? What if they split? What if Barack Obama loses all of the March 4 primaries but posts routs in North Carolina and Pennsylvania? How many superdelegates do the candidates need?

To answer these hypotheticals and many more, CNN established a fun and addicting “delegate counter,” which allows you to allocate delegates from remaining primaries to the candidates in proportions of your choosing.

Including today, there are 16 remaining nominating contests and (according to the latest estimates) 364 uncommitted superdelegates up for grabs.

One thing our experimenting has shown is that it’s going to be awfully hard for either candidate to hit 2,025 without unexpected landslide wins or a major shift among superdelegates. We could be looking at (gulp) a brokered convention.

Click on the game to play…

Civil rights leader and U.S. Rep. John Lewis abandoned support for Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential bid Wednesday in favor of Barack Obama.

The Democratic congressman from Atlanta had been the most prominent black leader in Clinton’s campaign - and is now its biggest loss.

It’s more than just a blow to Hillary’s morale. John Lewis and nearly 800 other superdelegates get a vote at this summer’s national convention.

Clinton enjoyed an edge in superdelegates support since the beginning of time. But slowly, even that is starting to erode in Obama’s favor.

Many are uncommitted. None want a brokered convention. To avoid mass hysteria, superdelegates are likely to back a clear favorite the instant there is one.

Victories in next Tuesday’s Ohio and Texas primaries could trigger a large-scale defection that paves Obama’s way to the Democratic nominations.

John Lewis said Obama “represents the beginning of a new movement in American political history” and he wants “to be on the side of the people.”

“After taking some time for serious reflection on this issue, I have decided that when I cast my vote as a superdelegate at the Democratic convention, it is my duty … to express the will of the people,” he said.

Appropriately, this photo captures U.S. Rep. John Lewis standing between Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton. Lewis now supports the former.

As one of the prominent civil rights leaders of the ’60s, Lewis’ support had been a coveted prize among the Democratic candidates.

“John Lewis is an American hero and a giant of the civil rights movement, and I am deeply honored to have his support,” Barack Obama said in a statement.

Clinton frequently cited Lewis in trying to establish her credentials among minority voters, calling her campaign as a continuation of his work.

But Lewis felt pressure to get behind Obama after his district supported the Illinois senator roughly 3-to-1 in Georgia’s Super Tuesday primary.

Lewis’ change of heart follows a similar move by Georgia Rep. David Scott, a black Democrat who represents a neighboring district.

Also yesterday, another superdelegate, Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, endorsed Obama, citing the presidential hopeful’s record on trade.

Earlier this week, former White House hopeful Sen. Chris Dodd backed him as well. Clinton is endorsed by 13 Senate colleagues, Obama 10.