Slowly but surely, the secretive superdelegates opt for Obama

The Guardian are reporting that most of the super delegates - who the media portray as "undecided" - have actually privately decided that they will support Barack Obama when they are asked to decide the democratic presidential nomination.

This should come a surprise to no-one. Hillary's request, that they should ignore the democratic wishes of the electorate and hand the nomination to her, was always far fetched. Were the party to do that - and disallow the first ever black candidate to win the right to campaign for the office of president - the democratic party would have rightly lost the black vote for generations and been cast into the political wilderness.

By every way that one can measure this contest - number of delegates won, the popular vote - Barack Obama has outperformed Hillary Clinton, and it is only right that the super delegates reflect this is casting their votes.

Since Tuesday, Clinton has had the endorsement of three superdelegates while he has announced 13, including seven yesterday. His campaign team is dripping them out every few hours to wear her down, gleefully sending out emails to the media announcing the dwindling number of delegates he needs to reach the 2,025 target.

The momentum has been with him since the SuperTuesday contests on February 3. Since then, he has picked up 113 of the undeclared superdelegates to her 22.

Although there are six primaries left, the contest is effectively over. Obama is behaving - and being treated - as the presumptive nominee.

Hillary has a couple of guaranteed victories ahead of her but they will count for nothing. As I've argued since March the 5th, this contest has been over for a long time, despite the fact that the media has been keen to portray it as "neck and neck".

There is much talk now about how to give Hillary a dignified exit, although I personally don't see how this is possible after she has clung on for so long after her defeat became inevitable.

There was even some insane talk yesterday about Obama paying off Hillary's debts in order to get her to stand down. This woman has wasted $11 million of her own money because she refused to see what was obvious to anyone who was paying attention: she had lost the election by Texas and Ohio.

The notion that Barack Obama should pay off her debts is obscene. Firstly, she ran up those debts throwing the kitchen sink at Obama and attempting to derail his campaign and, secondly, had I given money to Obama's campaign - which I sadly can't as I am not a US citizen - I would be furious if my money was handed to Clinton to compensate her for money she foolishly wasted because she refused to accept a political reality which she didn't care for. There is surely some rule somewhere which would render Obama paying her debts as illegal?

There is even talk of making Hillary Vice President, which is another scenario which I regard as obscene. She has gone on record as stating that Obama does not have what it takes to be President, that only she and McCain have passed the "threshold" to be Commander in Chief, it would be simply obtuse were Obama to reward her for that behaviour by making her his VP.

Obama has promised - and has delivered - a new kind of campaigning style and will now go on to deliver a new kind of presidency. Hillary, by every way she has conducted herself during this campaign, has proven that she is part of the old Washington way of doing things.

It is simply inconceivable that she could ever credibly become Obama's VP.

So, personally, I don't care whether Hillary's supporters are given an exit which they regard as fitting for their candidate; she has clung on for much longer than she should have done and when she eventually steps down it will be long, long, overdue.

We have a winner, and I am seriously uninterested in when Taylor March and the other lunatics are willing to take off their blinkers. Their behaviour in constantly attacking the other democratic candidate - and doing their very best to make him unelectable - has been simply disgraceful. It will be a long time before I forgive them.

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Tags: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, US election 2008, Democratic presidential nominee, Taylor Marsh