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The race for superdelegate support during the extended competition between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination offers a unique opportunity to examine the behavior of party elites with regard to their party's rank and file. The choice and timing of superdelegates' endorsements were examined, as well as measures of superdelegate loyalty, enthusiasm, considerations of candidate viability, and strategic endorsements. Did superdelegates endorse candidates based on personal or political ties, or to settle old political scores, as much of the press coverage suggested? Did superdelegates try to hijack the nomination for a candidate other than the one preferred by party rank-and-file participants in primaries and caucuses? We find that, taken in the aggregate, superdelegate endorsements were based on systematic considerations about candidates' standing as measured by national opinion polling, state support for candidates, and the candidate delegate count. Furthermore, female superdelegates showed more enthusiastic support for Clinton, while elected officials who were superdelegates were more likely to support Obama.

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