Many of us in the blogosphere were taken aback when Hillary Clinton and others in her campaign began pushing the idea that pledged delegates were not bound by the results of the vote in their state or district, and that they could switch their allegiance if they chose to. The Clinton campaign always denied that they might make an effort to raid Obama's pledged delegates, but the denials seemed to ring hollow with most of us. Well, it appears that Hillary and her helpers were right about pledged delegates being able to switch their allegiance, but I don't think they planned on things going this way:
Prince George's County Executive Jack B. Johnson, a Democratic convention delegate pledged to support Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, said yesterday that he thinks Sen. Barack Obama has "in a real sense" won the Democratic nomination and that he now plans to support Obama at the August convention.
Johnson, who endorsed Clinton nine days before Maryland's February primary, said he will urge Gov. Martin O'Malley and Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, who co-chair Clinton's Maryland campaign, to bring all of her delegates to Obama's camp for the sake of party unity.
"I cannot in good conscience go to the convention and not support Barack," Johnson said in an interview. "She ran a great campaign, but she fell short of the line."
Karma's a bitch, ain't it? Johnson's defection theoretically validates what the Clinton campaign has been saying about pledged delegates, and thus gives them a green light to begin raiding Obama's pledged delegates. But I doubt that we'll see a lot of pledged delegates switching sides, despite the precedent that's been set here. Most pledged delegates are selected for their loyalty and aren't likely to change their allegiance on the drop of a hat. And Obama's delegates in any event probably wouldn't be inclined to change, since their candidate is the frontrunner and has demonstrated his resilience in the line of fire over the last few weeks.
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