First, the superdelegates are not only not required to vote for the people they have pledged to, they are officially not pledged to anybody — they are expressing their current opinion, and any poll of superdelegates is nothing more than an opinion poll.
Counting them now in order to claim victory would be like polling a small town two months before an election, and claiming the results show that you already won the election.
More interestingly, the Democrats do not have a rule that the PLEDGED delegates have to vote for a particular candidate (The Republican party requires delegates to vote for their “pledge” on the 1st ballot).
Which means that a delegate could be assigned for Obama, but show up and vote for Hillary.
However, the PLEDGED delegates are mostly assigned, chosen, or “rejectable” by the candidate they are pledged to. So if a candidate thinks one of their pledged delegates is waffling, the candidate can have them removed, and replaced by a more loyal delegate.
So it is unlikely pledged delegates will switch sides. They should be people strongly supportive of the candidate.
In the Republican race, a LOT of the pledged delegates have no connection to the candidates they are pledged to. We just elected our delegates in Virginia, and only one of them mentioned being a McCain selection. For all we know, we elected a slate of Ron Paul supporters. They have to vote McCain in round 1, but realise that if there was going to be a floor fight, a candidate not only had to win pledged delegates, but then go to the many different venues where delegates were chosen and get THEIR PREFERRED slate of delegates elected.
(BTW, I am certain we did not pick Ron Paul delegates, I questioned each one on this point before voting).
Good post. I think I understand this better now.