The Party Machine is out and taking the vote from the voters in the Democrat contest. Super Delegate endorsements are flying fast and furious as the party realizes their two candidates are taking damage and their supporters are becoming entrenched.

A leader of the Democratic Party under Bill Clinton has switched his allegiance to Barack Obama and is encouraging fellow Democrats to “heal the rift in our party” and unite behind the Illinois senator.

Joe Andrew, who was Democratic National Committee chairman from 1999-2001, planned a news conference Thursday in his hometown of Indianapolis to urge other Hoosiers to support Obama in Tuesday’s primary, perhaps the most important contest left in the White House race. He also has written a lengthy letter explaining his decision that he plans to send to other superdelegates.

“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.

…

Clinton had a big advantage among superdelegates, many of whom like Andrews have ties to the Clintons and backed her candidacy early on. But most of the superdelegates taking sides recently have gone for Obama, who has won more state contests.
Obama now trails her by just 19 superdelegates, 244-263. This week, he picked up eight superdelegates while she netted three.

More here on the internal battles. Problem is this is too late – they should have moved before Clinton took the lead in the popular vote (counting FL which was a fair contest, and MI which was a primary Obama decided to drop out of on his own). And in these last contests Clinton could take the popular vote lead with just FL. That popular vote is the will of the voters. Even more starkly is if you look at primaries, which is the will of the average voters Clinton cleans Obama’s clock. Clinton has a case to make that the party machine is warping, and through archaic rules they set up, taking the decision out of the voters’ hands.

Clinton supporters are twice as likely to move to McCain if she loses than Obama supporters. So from a GOP side there is still a plus side – though having the decision happen in Denver in September would be optimal timing-wise. Anyway, acting now removes the final voters from the decision, meaning the Dem Party Machine only looks to the voters when they want or need a semblance of democracy, otherwise they make the decisions.

Like I said, this is the worst time to step in and play God simply because the voters are about to have their final say and may resolve it all. But what else do Dems do but pick the worst time to make a stand on anything? Remember their stand in March of 07 that the Surge of forces in Iraq was a failure before it started, and then how they continued that line of denial all the way until September? How worse could they have timed that debacle?