England for Obama

After the flurry of superdelegate endorsements yesterday, Barack Obama today received support from an unexpected source as a former Democratic National Committee chairman, who was appointed to the post by President Clinton, switched sides in the contest.

But as influential as Joe Andrew might be in status terms, it is the unequivocal reasons he cited for the switch which may be more important.

“I am convinced that the primary process has devolved to the point that it’s now bad for the Democratic Party,” Andrew said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. “A vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote to continue this process, and a vote to continue this process is a vote that assists John McCain.”

That is about as stark an indictment of the increasingly negative “slash and burn” Clinton campaign as a former friend can deliver, and is unlikely to go unnoticed by other superdelegates.

Andrew stressed that the Obama campaign had not asked him to switch his support, but he decided to do so after watching Obama’s handling of two issues in recent days - the summer gas tax holiday which both Clinton and McCain support, and the controversy surrounding his former pastor, the Rev. Wright.

“He has shown such mettle under fire. The Jeremiah Wright controversy just reconfirmed for me, just as the gas tax controversy confirmed for me, that he is the right candidate for our party.”

The importance of his switch however remains the stark reasons why he thinks the primary race needs to be decided.

“While I was hopeful that a long, contested primary season would invigorate our party, the polls show that the tone and temperature of the race is now hurting us,” he said. “John McCain, without doing much of anything, is now competitive against both of our remaining candidates. We are doing his work for him and distracting Americans from the issues that really affect all of our lives.”

It is a sentiment which few Democratic Party realists can deny, although only time will tell whether other superdelegates have the courage to follow his lead before the primary process ends. Clearly Joe Andrew hopes that his intervention will tip their hands too, but even if it doesn’t his switch removes a delegate from Clinton and adds it to Obama, widening the gap by two.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 1st, 2008 at 2:27 am and is filed under News, Press Coverage, Support. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.