Udall: Can't Decide Whom to Support, Can't Stand Up for Democracy in His Own Party

Boulder liberal Rep. Mark Udall has got to be looking for a break. These are rough days on the campaign trail for the Democratic Senate candidate.

1) Udall's influence in Congress is in a radical freefall.
2) People are once again noticing the confusion - no, let's call it what it is: plain dishonesty - about Udall's address of residence.
3) Udall's spokesperson opens his mouth to the press only to reinforce how out of touch the candidate is.

Now this...

The increasingly bloody melee in the ever-lengthening Democrat presidential primary has got to be increasing Mark Udall's heartburn, too. Over at the Politico website, they're keeping track of which Democrat officials and high muckety-mucks have pledged their superdelegate votes and to whom.

Mark Udall is still firmly in the undecided column, but you'd have a hard time deciding, too: Go with the guy who won big majorities at the Colorado caucus and still kind of looks like the frontrunner despite nagging scandals and incompetent advisers. -OR- Pick the wildly unpopular and shrill former First Lady who suddenly has campaign momentum and who could make your life miserable if she ends up the nominee, especially if you wait too long to back her.

Then there's the whole superdelegate scheme itself. A couple days ago Udall's colleague Rep. Ed Perlmutter was busy trying to pooh-pooh rank-and-file Democrats' concerns about the patently undemocratic scheme. That was before Hillary's Tuesday comeback threw a wrench into the plan of not having to rely on superdelegates to decide the Democratic nominee.
Now, to make matters worse, Clinton's people are trying to get delegates in the non-binding straw poll to turn their votes from Obama, even though he won an overwhelming majority. How is that for "democratic"?

Where does Udall stand on the matter? In complete silence, as far as we can tell. Just when the Democrat voters he's relying on need him to step forward.

Nothing. Not a word.

But hey, Mark Udall, stuck between a tangled feud of party leaders and party faithful, is paralyzed by inaction. And it looks like there could be many more weeks of this unresolved intraparty strike for Udall to look forward to, maybe all the way to the Democratic National Convention at the end of August.