Job Hunting

The former head of the DNC, who endorsed Hillary on the day she announced for President, has now flipped to Barack in an attempt to influence the vote in Indiana on Tuesday. Joe Andrew, who was given his DNC job by Bill Clinton, says he wants to stop the hemorrhaging:

Andrew said in his letter that he is switching his support because "a vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote to continue this process, and a vote to continue this process is a vote that assists (Republican) John McCain."

If he'd left it at that it would have been fine. But then Andrew tried to make the case that voters should throw their support behind the campaign that is imploding instead of the one that is surging. His justification is bizarre:

Andrew said the Obama campaign never asked him to switch his support, but he decided to do so after watching Obama's handling of two issues in recent days. He said Obama took the principled stand in opposing a summer gas tax holiday that both Clinton and McCain supported, even though it would have been easier politically to back it. And he said he was impressed with Obama's handling of the controversy surrounding his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

"Yeah, that's it, Barack's handling of Jeremiah Wright has been so impressive, that's what I'll say, that's the ticket."

Other party leaders are encouraging superdelegates to pick a side by late June to prevent the fight from going to the national convention in August. Andrews wrote in his letter that he is calling for "fellow superdelegates across the nation to heal the rift in our party and unite behind Barack Obama."

What's really going on? Andrew is a super delegate from Indianapolis. He's calculating that Barack is going to get the nomination despite being a damaged candidate, and this is his chance to gain favor with the nominee. If he waits, he loses the leverage of next week's primary and becomes just another of the 200 Super D's who aren't going to commit until events play themselves out. That's no way to win a job in a new administration.