And - aren't caucuses pretty close to the non-verified ballot which has no real record to go back to?

Unfortunately, this argument has become a technicality -- and the SD's (like Obama supporters) seem to have their fingers thrust firmly into their ears and are loudly chanting blah-blah-blah-blah.. as they march us all toward the Nov. precipice.

All of the "unity" candidate supporters seem to be ignoring this. They take the attitude of the Republican Party after 2000: We won. You lost. Suck it up. That attitude works if you have undisputed power, but not when you need the support of the "losers" to achieve further goals. I would seriously wonder if all of the people whining about Clinton supporter's weren't Republicans trying to undermine the Democratic Party... except that many of them have been prominent progressives for years.

Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who endorsed Mr. Obama nearly two months ago, recently called Gov. Bill Ritter Jr. of Colorado, who has yet to endorse a candidate. "Hey, Ritter!" Mr. Richardson said. "After June 3, it means nothing. Those who take a little bit of a risk, he'll remember you."

On the other end of the line, Mr. Ritter demurred, saying he had pledged to remain neutral until the primary season ends.

OK for a Gov, but a party apparatchik? And even for the Gov, for how long?

For the present it won't likely look too good. Yet we all know lot can happen between now and the convention. According to the U.K. Telegraph, the Obama campaign is going to try to take her completely out of contention:

Hillary Clinton will be offered a dignified exit from the presidential race and the prospect of a place in Barack Obama's cabinet under plans for a "negotiated surrender" of her White House ambitions being drawn up by Senator Obama's aides.

I dont mind rewriting some parts of the constitution but that cant be done now

If I was a non-partisan and undecided Superdelegate who wanted to use the national popular vote as my #1 factor in deciding who to support, in the absence of an official count, I would need to uses estimates on caucus states that don't release their tallies and estimates for Obama's actual popular support in Michigan at the time of the primary.

Since the "national popular vote count" is not an official tally, why wouldn't a non-partisan superdelegate want to be as inclusive as possible in trying to assess the votes of all of those voters who came out to vote in the primaries?

In my opinion, a stronger argument for Hillary is her electibility and the fact that since March 1 she has won the majority of the primaries by over 500K.

I don't think that the "national popular vote" argument that estimates 0 support for Obama in Michigan will hold water with any superdelegate who isn't already in Hillary Clinton's camp, in other words, not an "undecided superdelegate."

If you look at the samples on the Puerto Rican Election Website the two choices on the ballots list all the delegates for each side, possibly meaning that the winner of the district receives all the delegates for the district.

I've made the following argument before, but now is perhaps a good time to repeat it, given its potential relevance.

I think the best example of why it is not legitimate to accord Obama any popular vote in MI is the very case in which Obama himself won his election against Alice Palmer, by taking her name off the ballot.

Yes, most people do feel that it's not quite right for Obama to have won an election like that, but the fact is that everyone recognizes that in our democracy, if your name is not on the ballot, nonetheless the votes must be counted as they are cast. The only "intent of the people" that counts, the only expression of the will of the people that counts, is that which is captured by a ballot cast in someone's name. No one says that the Alice Palmer election must be thrown out because her name was not on the ballot. No one says that, because, counterfactually, the people might have voted for her in great numbers had her name been on the ballot, the election is not legitimate. It is simply accepted that the outcome is legitimate, and does express the will of people.

Insofar as we accept as legitimate the Alice Palmer result, and many others like it, I don't see how we don't accept that Obama should be accorded none of the votes in MI. This point should indeed be most obviously true for Obama supporters, who surely see little wrong in his win over Alice Palmer.

So what your left with is two candidates who are essentially tied, but one has far more pledged delegates.  For her to win, Obama would almost have to win no more pledged delegates and she'd have to win nearly all the remaining SD's.

Does your argument extend therefore to discounting all pledged delegates from states that will be solidly Republican in November? If you are making a principled nit-picking argument, then re-compute the actual delegate counts that Obama has truly won that will matter to the Democratic party in November.

I have a different principle at stake here, that every vote should count. PR votes count. Senator Obama gets 0 votes in MI. Period.

<Digression>
IMO, the electability argument does not rest merely on the popular vote lead that Senator Clinton has. It really is an argument based on looking at our nation, and the nomination process from a more holistic perspective. Who is the best candidate the Dem. party can field against Senator McCain?

For eg; on PR --

Others have mentioned both the importance of PR to the US (BTD has a post with a link to an illuminating article on the statehood issue), and the number of Puerto Ricans who have relatives in the US.

To me, Puerto Rico counts because it shows the level of Hispanic support Senator Clinton has (w/ or w/out Bill Richardson's endorsement of Obama).  It shows her ability to cross ethnic and class lines (look at the demographics and income ranges in PR) and appeal to a wide coalition of voters -- no matter where they are. Senator Obama is going to find out how solid his new voter and emerging co-alition strategy is in November. That's the real argument here -- and last but not the least -- Senator Obama has shown a singular lack of ability to expand his base for the Fall, and seems  uninterested in reaching out to the Clinton base without which he'll fail in November. PR provides more evidence of this fact for the SD's to consider.

Remember, when Obama was racking up wins, it was all about the "will of the people."  When he lost Massachusetts, and they realized that Kerry, Kennedy and Patrick would have to commit to Clinton under a will-of-the-people argument, they shifted to delegate counts.  They will brook no discussion about the popular vote - and this message has been beaten to a fare-thee-well ever since.

I think it ought to be obvious to anyone whose eyes are open and who can round up a quorum of brain cells: Obama has been in a downward spiral since Super Tuesday, has lost one bedrock state after another - some by eye-popping margins.  If this is a football game, Team Obama's playing prevent defense to protect a lead - and doing it poorly - while Team Clinton has the momentum, continues to march the ball down the field and score points; Team O's looking weak.  Sure they might be able to hang on until the clock ticks down to 0:00, but can they beat their next opponent?

I have to believe that if the SD's were so convinced that Obama is the better candidate for defeating McCain, they would have ended this a long time ago.

The question is, will the allow themselves to be bullied or threatened into committing to Obama, and can they hold them off past Wednesday?  Given that there is a remarkable weakness in the spines of far too many Dems, I'm not all that confident that they will be able to do that.  

Yeah, I know it isn't officially over until August, but consider that if Obama has the delegates he needs, and there are no more primaries in which he can suffer embarrassing losses, it is going to be unbelievably hard to get enough of a shift at the convention for this to go Clinton's way.  There will not be one iota of support for even saying Clinton's name in the media, much less making an argument that she is still technically in it.  Once he has the delegates, it is going to be McCain-Obama, general election coverage - the "fight" for the nomination will be over, as far as the media is concerned.

The only thing that will move Obama out of the nomination, once he gets the delegates he needs, will be a significant scandal, or continued flubs and flip-flops, or failure to open up a lead on McCain.

RCP has Obama by +183,057 including IA,NV,ME,WA.

Even if you grant ALL uncommitted in MI (238168) -- as  I'm sure Obama and the DNC are wont to do -- that will reduce Clinton's win to +90,141 in MI.

Can you do the remainder of the math? (Her margin is likely to grow since PR is now at ~75% reporting).

That just isn't enough to justify what will be widely perceived as overturning the will of the pledged delegates.

Let's just agree to disagree. I'd say it exactly the opposite way. (i.e. There just isn't enough margin in the pledged delegate lead for Senator Obama for the Superdelegates to overturn the will of the people and the strengths of the coalitions that Senator Hillary Clinton has demonstrably put together in swing states for the Fall Election).

The answer is...

I don't really care.

The object is to win 4 games not score the most runs.

The object of the candidates is to get the most delegates.

Obviously, scoring a lot of runs is important in winning baseball games.  Just as getting a lot of votes is important in winning delegates.

However, votes are a means to an end.

I hope and pray that every Democrat votes the the Democrat for President this year.

I already cast my vote for Clinton back in February.  I will vote for her again in November if she is on the ballot.