A longtime Congress-watcher e-mails me, in response to today’s column on ten superdelegates who could get the Democrats out of their jam:

Nice column.. Like something Biblical, it seems the keys are found in the numbers 3, 6 and 9. [The numbers for Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and assorted red-state Democrats.]
It seems from their rhetoric that Pelosi is leaning toward Obama and Hoyer toward Clinton, and Pelosi is one of the few super delegates actually in a position to do harm to people who don’t toe the line, so she might be able to bring people along with her. But her overriding interest is not in who gets elected president, but in protecting and expanding the Democratic majority in the House. Thus, she has to take into consideration the folks you astutely mention in No. 9. If they make a collective dash for the doors away from Obama because they fear he’ll take them down with him in their districts, Pelosi just might dash with them, to protect them and her own majority. She would have to weigh that against the offense it would give to No. 7 [Rep. Jim Clyburn]. But while that might matter in national politics and in actually running the House and the comity therein, without the red state Dems, she won’t have a majority to manage. The Black Caucus might be madder than hell, but they’ll be there in any case.