Posted by Jed Lewison on Mon Jun 2, 2008 at 3:50 PM Pacific

All the tea leaves you need

There's a ton of speculation about whether or not Barack will get 2,118 or 2,117 (pending Donna Edwards' election) tomorrow night. My own view is that he will. I can't prove that or anything -- it's just a strong hunch. (Update: kos is also optimistic, citing Chuck Todd who says up to 18 of the 34 undeclared House superdelegates will endorse Barack tomorrow.)

And as I mentioned earlier today, I think all the tea leaves you need were in full view on Saturday when the RBC voted to reinstate Michigan at half-strength with a 69-59 delegate split. The Clinton campaign was royally displeased with that decision -- but of their 13 supporters on the RBC, 5 voted for it, and 8 voted against it.

That vote really tells you all you need to know about what superdelegates are going to be doing: if she couldn't hold her 13 SDs together on a procedural issue, there's no way she'll be able to hold them together on a vote for the nomination itself.

Update 2-Even more tea leaves from Marc Ambinder (via Andrew Romano):

Clinton Campaign staffers and former campaign staffers are being urged by the Clinton campaign's finance department to turn in their outstanding expense receipts by the end of the week. That's a sign, to them, that the campaign wants to get its affairs in order soon. If Clinton were staying in the race, there'd be no real reason to collect these receipts now; she'd still be raising and spending money from the same primary campaign account. The campaign is in arrears to the tune of about $11 million.

All the tea leaves you need

There's a ton of speculation about whether or not Barack will get 2,118 or 2,117 (pending Donna Edwards' election) tomorrow night. My own view is that he will. I can't prove that or anything -- it's just a strong hunch. (Update: kos is also optimistic, citing Chuck Todd who says up to 18 of the 34 undeclared House superdelegates will endorse Barack tomorrow.)

And as I mentioned earlier today, I think all the tea leaves you need were in full view on Saturday when the RBC voted to reinstate Michigan at half-strength with a 69-59 delegate split. The Clinton campaign was royally displeased with that decision -- but of their 13 supporters on the RBC, 5 voted for it, and 8 voted against it.

That vote really tells you all you need to know about what superdelegates are going to be doing: if she couldn't hold her 13 SDs together on a procedural issue, there's no way she'll be able to hold them together on a vote for the nomination itself.

Update 2-Even more tea leaves from Marc Ambinder (via Andrew Romano):

Clinton Campaign staffers and former campaign staffers are being urged by the Clinton campaign's finance department to turn in their outstanding expense receipts by the end of the week. That's a sign, to them, that the campaign wants to get its affairs in order soon. If Clinton were staying in the race, there'd be no real reason to collect these receipts now; she'd still be raising and spending money from the same primary campaign account. The campaign is in arrears to the tune of about $11 million.

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