Florida House Minority Leader Dan Gelber, until today an uncommitted superdelegate, has announced he’s supporting Barack Obama for president, partly because he thinks the primary contest needs to end and he believes Hillary Clinton no longer has a chance of winning.

“As a superdelegate from the rogue state of Florida (currently under penalty from the DNC) my vote doesn’t count. But if it did, I would say it’s time to move on and choose Senator Barack Obama,” Gelber said on his blog Wednesday.

“As a superdelegate, I think we’re ready for a nominee to come out,” he added in an interview.

Several Florida superdelegates have said they intend to remain neutral at least until the Democratic National Committee settles the question of whether Florida delegates will be allowed to vote on the nomination at the national convention. Currently, the Florida and Michigan delegations are banned because the states’ primaries were held too early, violating party rules.

But Gelber noted that even if the Florida and Michigan delegates were given their votes, Obama would still be well ahead, probably putting the nomination beyond Clinton’s reach.

He said Obama “has made his case” by winning the most primaries and caucuses and therefore the most pledged delegates, and that it would be “both elitist and decidedly un-Democratic” for the unpledged superdelegates to overturn that judgment by awarding the nomination to Clinton.

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