Obama's Superdelegate Surprise?

Barack Obama's campaign has apparently identified 50 superdelegates who are ready to go public with their support for him over Hillary Clinton.

Veteran newsman Tom Brokaw said Tuesday that sources very close to the Democratic presidential hopeful's camp told him that those superdelegates would announce their support for Obama "before too long."

"That's a lot. That's a big number," Brokaw said on MSNBC this morning.

Clinton is currently ahead in the superdelegate count but Obama's new support would propel his count to just beyond Clinton's. An AP count has Clinton with 241 superdelegates and Obama with 199. Clinton is behind in the regular delegate count.

But Clinton adviser Terry McAuliffe said that with 400 delegates at stake in races today in Texas, Ohio, Vermont and Rhode Island, Clinton in no way should be counted out. "You can feel the excitement, Hillary's going to win Ohio" and Texas, McAuliffe said from the Buckeye State. Even though Bill Clinton has said his wife is out of the race if she doesn't win Texas, McAuliffe reminded viewers that Bill didn't win the Democratic nomination in his White House bid until June 1992. "She's going to do what she thinks is in the best interest of the country," he said.

A Washington Post-ABC News poll out today shows that two-thirds of Democrats think that even if Clinton wins either Texas or Ohio today, she should stay in the race - no matter what her husband says. But 51 percent say she should drop out of she loses both states. Meanwhile, a Reuters-CSPAN-Houston Chronicle poll also released today shows that Clinton has retaken a small lead over Obama in Texas and has deadlocked the Ohio race.