You better believe it , she is not going to be there.

She has disgraced herself throughout this process.

Hillary Clinton will be ahead in the popular vote at the end of this process .

We will see then.

She is not a honest broker and I don't see how the Clinton camp allows her to be in a leadership position at the convention

How can you call it the popular vote when Nevada, Maine, Iowa, and Washington will NOT be counted?

Can Pelosi just endorse Obama already?  She's been saying whatever she can to twist things in favor of Obama, and I wish she would simply just endorse him instead of playing it like she's impartial.  I think I'd have more respect for her then.

P.S. Is she still on the talking point about superdelegates needing to follow the popular vote?  If that's the case, is she talking about her district (which I'm sure she'll say she is) or her state?

Interesting that Jerome does not find someone with a Pro-Obama position to be correct.  I wonder what the odds of that are.

Considering Obama will almost assuredly have the most delegates, votes and states won i cannot see a single case for Clinton to be made.

"Pelosi argues that considering the will of the people is illegitimate."

I am completely lost. I don't understand this claim. Pelosi says that the will of the people, as expressed through the nominating process, should rule.  She is against superdelegates overturning the pledged delegates.

He's ahead in EVERY category, including 700,000+ votes.

Given the popular vote numbers http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/ 2008/president/democratic_vote_count.htm l and either new contest in FL and MI or noredos with those states excluded, it's hard to map out a credible scenario where Clinton ends up with a popular vote lead.

You are just a blogger.  I'm gone have to take her view as having more sway than yours considering her power and influence over the superdelegates.  Having Dean and Pelosi not on your side is bad news for Hillary.

This moving of the goal posts...

Arguing that whoever leads in delegates, which is the metric of success for the nomination contest, should be endorsed by the superdelegates is HARDLY moving the goalposts.

You know as well as anyone that the goalpost-moving has been done entirely by the Clinton camp.  Strange, I didn't see you post anything about that.

The sad thing is, I don't even mind bloggers endorsing a candidate -- I don't think it's reasonable for them to stay entirely impartial.  But there's a difference between advocating one candidate over another, and being a shill that does nothing but post pro-Clinton stories.

The person with the most delegates "dies"?  I didn't think that there would literally be a deathmatch at the convention.

Yeah, I sent an email to Pelosi today.  She tries to "pretend" to be an honest broker in this process, not having "endorsed" either candidate.  She is OBVIOUSLY sided with Obama, and is using her soapbox to try and discredit a potential popular vote win by Clinton.  This is very unappealing.  If you're going to endorse, then endorse.  Don't run around pretending to be an honest broker, yet do everything in your power to aid one candidate.  She has lost my support.  
Email her:

http://www.house.gov/pelosi/contact/cont act.html

You can go back through the history books, and find many examples of political candidates that have come into a Democratic convention with a plurality lead in delegates, but have not gotten the nomination.

Jerome, can you name these examples?

By the way, it's hilarious that the very same "will of the people" argument was lampooned on the main page about a month ago.  Moving the goalposts, indeed.

It's a good thing that one candidate will head to the convention leading in pledged delegates and the popular vote.

You can go back through the history books, and find many examples of political candidates that have come into a Democratic convention with a plurality lead in delegates, but have not gotten the nomination.

But historically is there a case anything really akin to this year's?  My understanding is "superdelegates" are a relatively recent invention.

[I posted this also on TalkLeft, but thought it relevant here]

The argument Pelosi is suggesting is actually incoherent.

If the rules, or the spirit of the rules, could only be respected if the superdelegates were to vote according to the pledged delegate count, there would be no need of superdelegates. The entire point of superdelegates as a class is to override, if necessary, the pledged delegate count. There can be no other justification for introducing them as a class.

In short, the very existence of superdelegates by itself refutes Pelosi's argument.

I think we all understand that superdelegates get to vote however they want. Pelosi is entitled to her opinion, the same as is someone who preaches the "big state" ideology of the Clinton camp, or says we "know what we're getting" with Hillary.

Despite being for Obama, this is one point I agree with the Clinton supporters: the argument that the superdelegates should "follow the will of the people" is disingenuous - whether you are discussing popular vote or pledged delegates. If they were simply there to ratify a choice from voting, we could simply not have them at all.

Regardless of the wisdom, the supers were put into play to use their experience and judgement to pick the best nominee, and they get to established their OWN criteria for doing that, whether it's the voters of their district, popular vote, pledged delegates, a vote for the first likely female candidate, the first likely black candidate, "big states", "swing states", "most states", coat tails, swiftboats, or whatever else enters their logic.

The right discussion to have now is: should they be around at all in 2012?

Also, Jerome - it's probably not fair to read Pelosi's mind here. I agree her statement looks like that of an Obama partisan, but it's also possible she's against supers entirely; if there were no supers, pledged delegates would decide it, not popular vote, end of story. It's possible she prefers pledged delegates for the same reasons people prefer the electoral college - to avoid a "tyranny of the majority" in very populous states, for example, or because it isn't fair to punish one state for low turnout because people have to slog through 4 ft of snow while another votes on a nice sunny day.

Jerome: "You can go back through the history books, and find many examples of political candidates that have come into a Democratic convention with a plurality lead in delegates, but have not gotten the nomination."

Where are these "history books" that talk about these examples.

Jay-Z once said. Obama is following the process just like most other democrats have. Why the hate all of the sudden? Could it be that Jerome's candidate is losing?  Yes.  By your logic we need to abolish the electoral college and forget about small states not having a say in politics. I guess it really is only the big states that "matter."

The race is set up by delegates, not by popular vote. You can't change the rules just because it suits your candidate. If popular vote was what mattered, we wouldn't determine the race by delegates. This just seems to be another attempt for Clinton to chip away at rules because she is losing.

How else would the popular vote in every state be counted?

The nomination contest is proportionally based for this very reason, isn't it?

Many a gasbags here: Pelosi's comments many be inopportune and oddly against self interest if she's for Obama as reported since he will surely prevail in the total votes category. But the rules dictate that the superdelegates vote any way they want by the criteria they set. Electablity should be a critical criteria but it is the superdelegates themself, like Pelosi, who determine the criteria, any criteria they want.  Pelosi is right  to argue for her own standard.  

First of all, you should give us Pelosi's actual quote instead of someone else's possibly biased interpretation. Don't you trust your readers enough to make up their own minds? Where are your primary sources?

Secondly, since it is the most important measure in your opinion, can you show us a popular vote total that accurately reflects the will of the people down to the individual voter? The best I've seen are estimates (that put Obama about 800,000 ahead) because of the nature of the caucus system. How do you control for caucuses vs. primaries? How do you control for open vs. closed systems? Which one is the super-special measurement that the Super Delegates should use?

Please, show us your work. Show us where this "popular vote" total is going to come from. Since Clinton can't win based on elected delegates, I see you are trying to move the goalposts for her and say that this new measurement that was never discussed before Clinton started to lose is the most important deciding factor in this race.

I hate to say this, but you grow more bitter each day. Where has the real Jerome Armstrong gone? Why was he replaced with this bitter, Markos-hating man?

The majority of democrats believe whomever is ahead with pledged delegates should win.  I agree.  Caucuses count too.  This is just like the Clintons wanting to change the rules in the middle of the game.  Win anyway you can even if it is to cheat.

An important point to remember:

HRC has to, at least, win the popular vote for this to even be an issue. If not, she's done. This is all actually quite simple.

We shall see playas...

The trouble with your post is that all the honest brokers want Hillary to concede.

All the people vested in turning this country round need Hillary to stop.

Only Republicans, feminists, the less educated older folk and people with a corruptable vested interests wnat Hillary to win.

A vote for Hillary is a vote for Mcain.

This not tough for honest brokers to figure out.

Pelosi is quite obviously wrong, and boarderline incoherrent with her arguement. If Obama loses the popular vote but somehow gets the nomination, that's discounting the will of the people, period. Superdelgates have an opportunity, and I would say responsibility, to fix the inbalances of the delegate system. Obama was just awarded some delegates from Iowa, but that was based absolutely none on the will of the people. If Obama gets more delegates from Texas than Hillary does that's discounting the will of the people.

And the Super Delegates have another important responsibility, to take into account who would be the best candidate in the general election. Late momentum will be something they should concider. Gaffs one candidate or the other makes, expecially if they're rather significant gaffs, can be something to concider as well regarding being a strong candidate for the fall. Pelosi wants to deny Superdelegates they're purpose in this process.

Pelosi is in the tank for Obama.  She can go ** herself.  I wonder if she's reconsidering his electability since finding out he spent 20 years in that church.

Madame Speaker,

I admire you greatly, but your stance that whomever wins the most pledged delegates should be the nominee is seriously flawed. As we are seeing in Iowa, delegates are choosing to vote for certain candidates and are NOT bound to vote as their constituents did. So...do the voters even matter anymore? Is it truly just the delegates who make the choice for the rest of us? I ask this because it seems quite likely that Hillary Clinton will come into the convention having won more total votes than Obama, but have less pledged delegates. If it is truly the VOTERS who decide the winner of elections, then the popular votes MUST strongly be taken into account. If not, then the Democratic party does deep, lasting damage to itself. Many will ask why its even called the "democratic" party anymore. Perhaps "Delegate Party" is more appropriate.

The only reason I come to this site is that I can count on there being Clinton shills here that I and others can shred.  As soon as this contest is over I will be deleting MyDD from my bookmarks.

To my understanding, Pelosi is the chair of the Convention and will therefore be obliged to the delegates, pledged and non-pledged alike.  Given that, her focus should be on the delegates and not the popular vote (though, again, unless we decide to ignore the people who participated in caucuses--and I'll even be nice and exclude Texas from the math for the moment--it appears as though Obama will likely lead in the popular vote as well as the pledged delegate count).

Still no historical examples from Jerome.  I am all for honest debate, but how about some facts to back up the assertion of historical precedent that supposedly confirms the thesis of this post?

I, for one, would love to be convinced by this argument, but it seems as if Jerome is just a bit lazy with his history books.  If he has the examples, he'd be well served using them, it would only help him.  Just saying "believe me, the examples exist" isn't enough.  

Even supposing there are corroborating examples, there is a valid idea that some prior cases (again, if they can be cited that would be helpful) may be anachronistic, but again without knowing the context it is kind of useless.  Jerome needs to do a better job here.

DEMS will loose this fall if somehow HRC or BHO are not BOTH on the same ticket this fall.

Full disclosure-I am an Obama supporter.

But, I will vote for the party's nominee either way. Let's keep this in perspective. Either one is better than BushIII/McCain. I think the extended primary is good in almost every way. It keeps our people and -ideally- our ideas in the spotlight while McCain has  to go around begging rich people for money. By the time the convention rolls around, barring serious shenanigans, the nominee will probably be clear, plurality or no.

So one important thing that we, the netroots community, can do is to keep the discussion about our candidates going, of course, but to force the campaigns to keep their eyes on the ball-electing one of these two to the presidency in November. If we don't stay united in that, we not only lose, we deserve to lose -kinda.

Oh of course.  Pelosi has lost any credibility.  Her numbers have hit rock bottom because she ISN'T representing the will of the people.  You know, what she blamed Dubya for.

Pelosi is only looking out for HER better interests.

Howard Dean ROCKS and is the Referee as he has stated numerous times while remainining neutral.

This is just insane. Armstrong and Armando are arguing for the destruction of the party.

A lot of this argument seems silly. Jerome is not saying election should be decided by popular votes or delegates. No, he's saying SUPERdelegates shouldn't be forced to decide one way or another as Nancy is suggesting. What's the big deal, Obama cultists?

Here's something interesting:

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/

Chuck Todd speculates that all of the criticizing of caucuses cost Clinton additional delegates in Iowa.  Whoopsee.

The primary season is a contest measured in  delegates.  Everyone knew that going into it.  The Clinton camp is the ONLY group of people who sees it any different than that now.  If you're going to insist on moving the goal posts and also insist on trying to count the January voting in Michigan and Florida even though everyone including Hilary agreed not to before primary season started it still will not result in a Hilary nomination.  What it will accomplish is to cause everyone but the not enough supporters to win that she has right now to lose respect for her and see her (and her supporters) as dishonest children.  If that happens you can forget about her successfully running for the nomination ever again.

She's lost.  Face it.  Step down with some dignity and run again  in 2012 or 1016 (no, she's not to old for that).  Just try to remember next time that she won't be entitled to the nomination then either.  You see you have to win the primary season.  It is a contest measured in delegates.  That's something that everyone but you Hilary folks already knows.  Maybe, armed with that knowledge, you can win it next time if you don't destroy any chance of that with histrionics and desperate attempts to change the rules this time around.  It just looks bad.

Jerome, could you please provide a specific history of those pre-McGovern candidates who entered the Democratic convention without a delegate lead and emerged victorious?  

Are you counting Michigan and Florida in your "Hillary wins the popular vote" counts?

Here's a question: what metrics do people think that the supers SHOULD use to cast their votes?  Virtually every one of these discussions has gone out of its way to criticize the methodology put forward by an Obama supporter, but I have seen few suggestions from the Clinton camp about what criteria the supers should use to vote.  We all know they can do whatever they want, but why should they vote in Clinton's favor?  Supposing that she loses the popular vote (and that does seem likely), what would the argument then be in her favor?

I've noticed in the past week Pelosi's departure from impartiality.  I think she should put a lid on it.

A) Right now, Obama looks to be ahead in both the popular vote and the pledged delegate count.

B) MI & FL goes to the Credentials committee if they can't come up with an acceptable alternative plan.  At this point it looks like Obama's Campaign will control the committee.  (MI looks like it will, FL continues its reputation of screwing it up.)

C) CW has MI going for Obama, FL for Clinton.  But what if MI is in and FL is out? (or at least at the mercy of the credentials committee.)

D) These Campaigns represent the embodiment of the two views of the party:

     (1) The old traditional 'states that matter' strategy. This is where the Democratic party machines are entrenched and have been Hillary supporters from before the start of campaigning.

     (2) The Dean inspired '50 state strategy'. Which seems to be where Barack is strongest, inspiring an approximate 2:1 turnout in favor of Democrats in all of the states that win the Republicans the election.

The process is bad, bad, bad until the superdelegates come in and vote to change the results of the first process and then the second process saves the day and it's good, good, good.  Geneva should provide for logic to be saved from your hands, Jerome.

Obama is not the anti-christ.  He's not set to doom the party nor the progressive cause.  Neither do I think is Clinton.  Both are flawed, but as Jonathan states above, both are in excellent shape to beat McCain...so long as they don't continue to cap each other at the knees (and particularly if they don't go down the road of mccain is better than my rival that one of them started down)...

You can go back through the history books, and find many examples of political candidates that have come into a Democratic convention with a plurality lead in delegates, but have not gotten the nomination.

This is true, but only for the pre-modern era when most of the delegates were not chosen in open contests, and the nominee was actually decided at the convention.  In the modern era, guess who had the most delegates going into each convention?

1972 - McGovern
1976 - Carter
1980 - Carter
1984 - Mondale
1988 - Dukakis
1992 - Clinton
1996 - Clinton
2000 - Gore
2004 - Kerry

Even going backwards, it's still basically true.  Humphrey had the most delegates going into the 68 convention; Kennedy had the most in 60; Stevenson had the most in 52 and 56; FDR had the most in 32; Smith had the most in 28.  The last dark horse candidate to emerge from a nomination was John W. Davis in the convention of 1924, when there was still a 2/3 rule, and when "Dry" William McAdoo and "Wet" Al Smith battled it out for 100 ballots before the Dark Horse emerged.  But I'm not sure how that can possibly be compared to present events.

The rules of the Democratic Party call for a 2025 delegate count to win the party nomination. In the event that this threshold is not met on the first ballot, there are subsequent rounds of balloting allowed. If Hillary Clinton has a case to make for why delegates (caucus and primary) should cast their ballots for her, she should do that by all means. If Nancy Pelosi can influence super-delegates to vote one way or the other, that too is well within her rights.

The bottom line is the party rules aught to stand for something, or nothing at all.

-- the people of CA supported Clinton - thus Pelosi should too.  

"You can go back through the history books, and find many examples of political candidates that have come into a Democratic convention with a plurality lead in delegates, but have not gotten the nomination."

Please elaborate (names of candidates who lost the delegate race but won the Democratic nomination anyway). I'd like to check up on these myself to see why it happened, and what the consequences were.

You said:

"You can go back through the history books, and find many examples of political candidates that have come into a Democratic convention with a plurality lead in delegates."

But you give no examples.  Why not take the time to give a few, especially if it is easy, and there are many?

Wow!

It truly has become "Against All Enemies" -- the Sequel.

Anyway, is Howard Wolfson's wife still Nancy Pelosi's Chief of Staff?

I wondered if anyone else noticed Pelosi's inconsistency in the statement.  Pledged delegates should count because that's the rule.  Superdelegates should rubberstamp the pledged because the rule is that they can vote however they want, but that rule shouldn't count.  It just sounds bone-headed.  I like all the screaming about Iowa, Maine, Texas and other caucus states "need to be heard" by the same people who don't want Florida to count.  Yeah, I know, Florida broke the rules, but that doesn't mean the supers can't vote for Florida if they want.  That's the rule too.  And by the way, if Hillary was ahead in pledged delegates because of caucuses, there'd be a heckuva lot of analysis at MyDD and other places about how undemocratic caucuses are.  They primarily reflect the views of people in those states who are affluent, university educated, and able-bodied.  Yeah, rules are rules....except superdelegates aren't bound to the pledged and can vote their conscience (but that rule shouldn't count).  Maybe the issues of Florida, Michigan, and unrepresentative caucuses should play a role in the superdelegate vote.  What bothers me is the rules-are-rules-you-want-it-both-ways-Hi llary line and the super-delegates-should-not-have-a-voice line coming out of the same camp.  Who's trying to play it both ways here?  The irony is rich.

Other party elders will follow in closing any talk about a convention coup.

Should stay in the race for the nomination, as should Edwards.  And Progressives should learn the ins and outs of nominating someone from the floor.

The convention is over five months away - anything can happen.  If Democrats knew in 2004 that the Swiftboating would take such a toll on Kerry, perhaps things would have been different in NYC in August.  But we should be prepared that anything can, and will happen, and shouldn't be left flailing in the wind.  Let the Democratic process work, even if it goes to the floor.  Heck, the floor might be the best place to most Democratically work this all out and have the strongest candidate going into the fall.

1) Pelosi is a figure with some amount of recogizeable POWER and Authority.

2) She has NOT come out and supported by word or deed a specific candidate.

3) Her interests MUST be the PARTY over her PERSONAL prefernces, as the the larger victories actually sertve her personal interests.  Stay with me here:  If she is to remain the Speaker of the House (and 3rd in line for the Presidency) she needs the Democratic party to maintain their majority and even expand upon it.

This means that it is in her party's interest, and therefore HER'S to have the strongest candidatefor the fall. She clearly beleives that Obama IS that candidate, based on data, primary/caucus results.

THERE is NO other reason for her to come out like this. Why would she threaten the whole of the party if she felt otherwise?

Finally:  to declare her a dishonest broker is, in light of the goals of her office and the logic of the math...rather silly.  

While you may not AGREE with her assessment of the facts, or her choice of process realtive to them, the idea that she is some sort of dishonest broker or somehow bought out is unfair at best.  At worst it is just another example of delusion/desperation turning into bitter attacking of yet another honorable person in gov't.  PLEASE...let's move beyond this.

The writing is on the wall.  Pelosi is obviosuly not going rogue here.... she is speaking for a number of higher-ups...that only follows.  

Perhaps HRC should SUSPEND her campaign rather than quit outright and assure that Barack remains healthy on the trail and a solid candidate?

Jerome, you cannot be serious.

You can't have an accurate measure of a popular vote when half of the contests are caucuses.

To say otherwise is frankly dishonest.

No matter, anyway, because it's unlikely that Clinton will make up the 700,000 vote deficit she's facing in the popular vote enough to overtake Obama.

Is it Howard Dean that would most likely chair the convention, or is Pelosi automatically the chair, or can someone else be put there?

Howard Dean is the Temporary Chair of the Convention, and will chair it until Pelosi gets elected the Permanent Chair on the first day.  Theoretically, pro-Clinton forces could nominate somebody else as Permanent Chair and force a roll call vote for Permanent Chair.  I don't see, however, how this does the party any good.

Details on the process can be found in the Call for the 2008 Democratic National Convention, section (VIII)(C)(3).

The danger here is that Hillary's campaign and supporters are attacking the legitimacy of the process itself.  States that don't vote for Hillary "Don't matter".  Caucus states are "undemocratic".  Crossover Republicans are bad, except for after McCain locked up the GOP nomination and they started voting for Hillary, then they're okay (even if they say they hate Hillary and will vote for McCain).  Popular vote is the most important, until Hillary is no longer leading there, then it should be based on the proportions of "self identified Democrats" in exit polls.  Superdelegates can vote any way they want, by any logic they want, but if they put forward a logic that isn't favorable to Hillary, they're no longer honest brokers.

My god, people, why can't you just admit that you are reaching for any lifeline for your candidate, grasping at any straw.  You don't want your candidate to lose.  I get that.  But as she has slipped successively further down, you've grown increasingly tortured in your logic of why that shouldn't matter.  Can you just admit that you don't care about logic, or facts, you feel it's Hillary's turn to be president, and anything or anyone that interferes with that is "cheating" her out of it?

So did Jerome ever provide his evidence of this happening before?

Like being Majority Leader?  Focus on your day job, Nancy.

Jerome's broadside is unfair and unfounded.  

Let's start from propositions that are indisputable:  1.  Someone has to win this race.  2.  It's not in the party's interests for the issue to be decided at the convention or slightly before. 3.  The pledged delegate count is an important part of the process (though not necessarily determinative).

Pelosi has explained her view that the pledged delegate count is the best method for superdelegates deciding between two candidates.  That viewpoint is not inherently unfair; it obviously is a reasonable way to look at it since pledged delegates are the method the party selected to accept public input into the process.  And if Pelosi had announced that view before the primary process started, there is no doubt that it would have been accepted as fair and reasonable -- even if it is not the only way to skin the cat.

Jerome's problem is that this method of viewing the superdelegate process favors one candidate over the other.  Not that it's an unreasonable approach or that it is inherently wrong.  The problem is that under this approach, Obama is extremely likely to win because he has out-performed Clinton by this measure.

Clinton's alternative approaches for how superdelegates should decide all involve the illegitimate Florida and Michigan contests.  She can't win the popular vote without them; this is a fact.  

She can't claim a mandate from swing states without them; this is also a fact.  (She has a meaningful win in Ohio and likely Pennsylvania; Obama has decisive wins in Iowa, Wisconsin, Virginia, Colorado, Minnesota, Washington, and Maine, and he likely will win decisively in North Carolina and Oregon.  The two essentially tied in the other two swing states, New Mexico and Missouri.)

The rules of the DNC process, which Clinton agreed to and Ickes voted for, have excluded those FL and MI contests.  It is simply absurd to say that Pelosi has forfeited her role as an honest broker by saying, effectively, that the DNC rules should be enforced, or that contests for which Obama didn't campaign because he was following the rules should play a meaningful role in the process.

Clinton has also attacked caucuses as illegitimate.  Pelosi's implict push-back on this is obviously not unfair; each state party has the right to decide its delegates, and many important states chose caucuses.  Those states should not be considered irrelevant because of it.  And, while they admittedly involve fewer people then primaries, they do measure enthusiasm among activists, which is not a trivial factor in deciding among candidates.  Particularly since Obama has shown he can swell the size of the group of party activists to record-breaking levels.

Perhaps there will be a revote in FL and MI, if it can be worked out.  It may well be too late to accomplish the logistical efforts necessary.  If Clinton had started pushing for revotes earlier, it certainly could have happened.  And Obama has never stood in the way of it.  

Again, Jerome's argument boils down to this:  Pelosi has announced a viewpoint, and it favors Barack, so she's not an honest broker.  It doesn't hold water, because every viewpoint favors somebody.  The reasons behind Pelosi's viewpoint must be recognized as sound and reasonable, even if you don't agree with it.

Jerome, your belated history lesson is not good news for Hillary. With the exception of Martin van Buren, no successful Democratic nominee that entered the convention with fewer delegates won the general election.  Not one. So why would you push for a brokered convention with that historical track record?  Time to concede your historical argument. It's dead.

In 1844, Polk won first the nomination, then the presidency.  He served a single term, with an opposition controlled Congress.  He was succeeded by one of only 2 Whig party presidents, Zachary Taylor.

In 1852, Pierce beat Winfield Scott after the Whig party chose not to nominate their incumbent, Millard Filmore (Taylor died in office).  In 1856, the Democrats did not renominate Pierce.

In 1868, Horatio Seymour lost the general.

In 1896, William Jennings Bryan lost the general.

1912, Woodrow Wilson became president in the face of a split opposition (Teddy Roosevelt's Bull Moose party).  He won relection in 1916, most historians believe because the US was in the middle of WW1.

In 1920, James Cox lost the general.

In 1924, John Davis lost the general.

In 1928, Al Smith lost the general.

These are not encouraging results to be looking to for historical precedent.

A few points:

1. Obama will go into the Convention with a clear majority of pledged delegates, not just a plurality.

2. You've explained why superdelegates can overrule the popular will. Why should they? What's the "damn good reason"?

3. The Democratic Party changed its delegate selection rules completely after 1968. Since then, there has never been a case of superdelegates overruling the pledged delegate winner. In fact, the opposite has happened at least twice.

4. As APoxOnBoth explains upthread, the historical record you dredge up is littered with Democratic nominees who lose. Nominating the less popular candidate isn't exactly a winning recipe for the general election.

5. Do you think it's merely an accident that there have been no cases in the New Media Era -- after the invention of radio? The 1924 Convention was the first broadcast on radio. It was also the last to overrule the popular will. Radio "crashed the gate."