Opinion: A Clinton superdelegate who can’t vote -- yet

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U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, sidelined superdelegate and supporter of Hillary Clinton, still sees a path for Clinton to claim the party’s presidential nomination -- if she runs the tables of major primary elections in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Indiana and beyond.

‘Then the momentum is with her... and at that point it’s a jump ball,’’ Nelson said in a program to air Sunday on C-SPAN’s Newsmakers. Yet Nelson, whose vote as a superdelegate has been frozen as part of the penalty on Florida and Michigan for holding early primaries, suggests that his fellow superdelegates will be hard-pressed to ignore the candidate who claims the most votes when the primaries end in June.

‘If I had a vote as a superdelegate, I’d want to know who won the states that are going to be critical in November,’’ says Nelson, pressed on what his advice for fellow senators and other party superdelegates will be if Barack Obama can claim the most support in June. Nelson also sees little likelihood of resolution of the campaign ...

before then: ‘I think we’re in a stalemate for at least another couple of months, until the course of the primaries run.’’

Nelson, who was interviewed by the Chicago Tribune and Politico.com for the program airing on Sunday at 10 a.m. EDT and 6 p.m. Eastern time, has made considerable efforts to broker an agreement among the Democratic National Committee, the parties in Florida and Michigan, and the Obama and Clinton campaigns.

The crossfire between the Clinton and Obama campaigns also is cause for great concern, Nelson suggests, saying, as does DNC Chairman Howard Dean, that the conflict between the two could damage the party in November.

‘The fact that they are almost even-Steven and neither of them are able to get to the needed delegates ... certainly is damaging,’’ Nelson said.

Asked to envision a peaceful resolution of all of this -- with the party coalescing around one of the candidates by June and the convention finding a way to accommodate the disputed delegates in some way -- Nelson was asked what it will take to win the voters of a swing state such as his, which could prove critical to anyone’s formula for winning the White House.

People are looking for change, and they are looking for leadership. ‘They want a president they can believe in,’’ the senator says. ‘They want a president who, like Teddy Roosevelt said, can speak softly and carry a big stick.’’

-- Mark Silva