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Remember James Clyburn? The powerful House majority whip caused quite the stir earlier this year when he publicly flirted with endorsing Barack Obama after pledging to stay neutral throughout the contest. After a few days of seeming to endorse, Clyburn finally declared himself to be “undeclared.” Well, Clyburn tells the Stamford Advocate in Connecticut that he will unveil his pick at 11am Tuesday -- while voters in Montana and South Dakota are going to the polls for the final two contests.

“As the House majority whip, I didn't want to interject myself into the process,” Clyburn said of his earlier non-decision. Clyburn did vote for a candidate in his home state of South Carolina and told the paper, “I'm not undecided, just unpledged." Clyburn should be expected to give his endorsement to Obama. He has criticized Hillary Clinton’s campaign for injecting race into the contest and his home state voted heavily for Obama in January.

Barack Obama has picked up endorsements from eight superdelegates since the end of last week, the biggest of which is West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd, who made his endorsement in a statement today. While Hillary Clinton won West Virginia’s primary by 41 points last week, Byrd explained his decision to back Obama: "After a great deal of thought, consideration and prayer over the situation in Iraq, I have decided that, as a superdelegate to the Democratic National Convention, I will cast my vote for Senator Barack Obama for President. Both Senators Clinton and Obama are extraordinary individuals, whose integrity, honor, love for this country and strong belief in our Constitution I deeply respect."

More Byrd: "I believe that Barack Obama is a shining young statesman, who possesses the personal temperament and courage necessary to extricate our country from this costly misadventure in Iraq, and to lead our nation at this challenging time in history. Barack Obama is a noble-hearted patriot and humble Christian, and he has my full faith and support."

Obama leads in the CBS News overall delegate count with 1,907 compared to 1,714 for Clinton. While Obama is unlikely to reach the number needed for the nomination (now 2,026 due to Mississippi’s special House election) with tomorrow’s contests, he is expected to have won the majority of the pledged delegates available overall when the results from Kentucky and Oregon are in.

And there continue to be signs that Democrats are coalescing around Obama’s candidacy. The Politico reports that former Clinton campaign manager (and longtime aide) Patti Solis Doyle is considering taking a job in the Obama campaign. Doyle was ousted from the Clinton campaign following a string of loses in February.

In a memo to “interested parties,” Clinton Communications Director Howard Wolfson pushes back against the idea that Barack Obama will be able to claim a measure of victory following tomorrow’s primaries in Kentucky and Oregon. Full text of the memo follows:

Senator Obama’s plan to declare himself the Democratic nominee tomorrow night in Iowa [link] is a slap in the face to the millions of voters in the remaining primary states and to Senator Clinton’s 17 million supporters.

There is no scenario under the rules of the Democratic National Committee by which Senator Obama will be able to claim the nomination tomorrow night. He will not have 2210 delegates, the number needed with Florida and Michigan included in the process, nor will he have 2025 delegates, the number needed to secure the nomination without Florida and Michigan.

Premature victory laps and false declarations of victory are unwarranted. Declaring mission accomplished does not make it so.

While Senator Obama inaccurately declares himself the nominee, Senator Clinton will continue to work hard, campaigning for every vote in the upcoming states and making the case that she will be the best nominee to take on John McCain and be our next President.

Obama will be in Iowa tomorrow night, the site of the caucus victory which launched his campaign. The symbolic move is a “terrific way to bring things full circle,” Obama told reporters Sunday while shying away from declaring outright victory. But in an e-mail to supporters today, Obama manager David Plouffe argues differently. Partial text:

We're poised to reach a major milestone tomorrow.

When the votes are counted in Oregon and Kentucky, we could secure a majority of delegates elected by the voters.

A clear majority of elected delegates will send an unmistakable message -- the people have spoken, and they are ready for change.

As we near victory in one contest, the next challenge is already heating up. President Bush and Senator McCain have begun coordinating their attacks on Barack Obama in an effort to extend their failed policies for a third term.

In an open letter to her Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton asks Barack Obama to help her "arrive at a solution that honors the votes of the millions of people who went to the polls in Florida and Michigan."

After Tuesday's results in North Carolina and Indiana have led many pundits to declare the Democratic race all but over, the Clinton campaign has revved up its effort to get counted the disqualified results of the Michigan and Florida primaries.

Clinton writes that finding a resolution to the Michigan and Florida issue "could be the difference between winning and losing in November" and that "our commitment to the voters of these states must be clearly stated and your support for a fair and quick resolution must be clearly demonstrated."

Read the full letter below.

Read full post…

When ABC News reported that Hillary Clinton had tried to convince Bill Richardson that Barack Obama "cannot win" the general election, it was the latest example of the concerted effort the Clinton camp has made to convince superdelegates to stick with her.

Clinton's aggressive attempt at persuasion didn't work in Richardson's case, but that hasn't stopped her campaign from honing its pitch to the party leaders who could decide the nomination.

Clinton adviser Harold Ickes recently admitted to bringing up the Reverend Wright controversy in his conversations with superdelegates, in order to try to convince them that Obama's baggage may be too heavy to beat John McCain.

Of course, the Obama campaign isn't just sitting on its heals while the Clinton operation tries to wrangle as many superdelegates as possible, and party leaders are being solicited actively by his campaign, as well. Al Gore even joked that he was getting so many call from both sides that in order to do his "60 Minutes" interview with Leslie Stahl, he had to disconnect his phones.

But Obama's frontrunner status affords him the luxury of taking a more nuanced approach to wooing superdelegates. The Illinois senator does not have to take the kinds of risks that Clinton does in trying to convince party leaders that his opponent is fatally flawed.

Obama has recently been described as more "magnanimous" in his approach to Clinton, an approach that the Obama campaign seems to hope will signal to superdelegates that when he becomes the nominee, the wounds of the party will heal rather quickly. The Clinton campaign, on the other hand, may not be able to attempt such subtleties.

Iowa and New Hampshire may be dominating in attention received by the candidates and, thus, the media. But Wyoming Republicans are holding a series of county convention meetings today to choose a total of 12 delegates to the national convention in Minneapolis next fall – the first delegates awarded in 2008. Final results are expected to be available later this evening but at the time of this post, three delegates have been awarded – all to Mitt Romney.

Update: As of 3:00pm eastern time, Mitt Romney has won six of the 12 Wyoming delegates. California Congressman Duncan Hunter has won one and Fred Thompson one, with four yet to be awarded. Those numbers are a correction over what was reported in this post earlier, which gave Romney seven and Hunter one. That still gives Romney a majority of the delegates.

Unlike even the Iowa caucuses, Wyoming's county conventions reflect more the choices of party leaders in the state than a popular vote. While several candidates have visited the state, mostly for fund-raising events, Wyoming has received little attention sandwiched in between the two traditional kick-off states and the state was penalized by the national party, which stripped it of half of its delegate total.