796 Insiders May Hold Democrats' Key

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Presidential Candidates Boost Campaign Efforts

The Republican and Democratic presidential candidates make a final appeal to voters before the "Potomac Primaries" of Maryland, Virginia and D.C. on Feb. 12, 2008.

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"Obama made the best pitch himself. Sometimes seeing is believing," Larson said, recalling that both candidates and Bill Clinton called the weekend after the Iowa caucuses. "I heard from him. I heard from Hillary. I heard from Obama. . . . It's not as if they were beating down the path to me. They were beating down the path to everyone."

The calculation of whom to endorse can be complicated: Superdelegates must think not only about their personal views but also about how their votes will be viewed by constituents, said Ickes, who has chased their support on behalf of candidates since 1988.

"You try to figure out, what factors influence them? Who do they talk to about presidential politics?" Ickes said. "Sometimes, it's two or three close confidants, sometimes it's a chief of staff, or someone who raises money for them. Maybe there's an issue that's important to them."

One adviser helping to oversee Obama's superdelegate efforts said the Clintons entered the contest for support with a significant edge, by virtue of Bill Clinton's ability to get on the phone and "try to call in all the chits that they believe they have."

The Obama adviser thinks those delegates are all spoken for at this point. "They got all of the low-hanging fruit. The ones left are the ones much harder for them to reach," he said, referring to the Clinton campaign.

With more than half of the superdelegates unclaimed, both campaigns remain hard at work. And even those whom they believe are secure could move. Arceneaux, the Baton Rouge delegate whose husband was named by Clinton in the 1990s as head of Sallie Mae, the nation's largest student loan company, said she is well aware of the fact that superdelegates are not firmly bound to a candidate until they stand up at the convention in August.

"I always have the option of changing my mind," she said.

Research director Lucy Shackleford and research editor Alice Crites contributed to this report.