The Superdelegates are doing a delicate dance right now.

I keep trying to explain this with varying success.

In this post, I make a little prediction of how things will most likely play out over the next 12 days. It's not very far-fetched.

The only thing it's missing is May 31. The rules committee will supposedly make a decision on that date as to what will happen with the FL and MI delegates. This is something the Superdelegates have to take into consideration, and is a major reason that more have not endorsed yet.

But that's not because they're trying to make up their minds or anything.

No, this is all about appearances. The fact is that the superdelegates realize they are an embarrassment to the Democratic Party. Our system of choosing a candidate is actually less democratic than the Republican system. Yes, it's more democratic the way our Pledged Delegates are chosen - using a proportional system rather than winner-take-all - but having superdelegates ruins the whole thing because each of them wields such enormous clout as opposed to the regular voters.

So they're dancing.

The goal of their dance is very simple: They want to ensure that it appears Obama clinched this nomination on June 3 with the final two primaries, and that it was the little people who finally ended it - not the embarrassingly powerful superdelegates.

Obama will almost certainly gain another 38-42 delegates or so in the last three primaries. Without our MI/FL problem this would be an easy dance. Another 25 superdelegates trickle in before June 3, and then he has over 2,025 after the final two primaries. It's a huge news story that he wins on that final day, and looks good to the voters.

But you throw MI and FL into the mix, now it's not so simple. If the rules committee were to meet LATER, it'd be easier - the superdelegates could just endorse en masse once Obama reached 2025, and that would essentially make MI/FL a moot point and they could then count them in whatever manner would make MI and FL the most happy (while still providing some penalty for breaking the DNC rules).

But it's not certain what the rules committee will decide.

So they have to dance VERY CAREFULLY from now on. 'Cause they don't want Obama to clinch with just superdelegates. It certainly won't look good for him to lose Puerto Rico but win the nomination on that day (under current rules), which could happen if too many Supers endorsed before June 1.

And of course they don't want the primary season to end without a winner and THEN they endorse. That would just look too undemocratic and be a very uncomfortable result for the Democratic Party.

If you go to DemConWatch today you'll see they have several scenarios posted for what might happen with MI and FL. The only scenario that could possibly result in a HRC win will not happen. That's the scenario where they all get counted as-is, full delegations seated, all superdelegates from MI/FL seated, and poor Obama gets zero delegates from MI and has to fight for his share of the Uncommitted ones. It's just. not. gonna. happen.

But all the other scenarios could ostensibly happen.

Fortunately there are a couple days after the rules committee meets before June 3. As stated above, June 1 doesn't matter because it'd look bad for Obama to lose Puerto Rico but clinch the nomination that day.

So we may see a few more superdelegate endorsements, but not too many because as stated above they want the wonderful tv theater on June 3 and they want it to look nice and democratic.

After the rules committee makes their decision, the superdelegates will then endorse in numbers sufficient to allow Obama to clinch the nomination on June 3 - but not in great enough numbers for him to clinch BEFORE then. Bank on it. Collusion? Most definitely. That's just the way it's gonna work this time around.

And I seriously hope the DNC in its infinite wisdom decides to get rid of Superdelegates next time around. They're not necessary - if something ever happened to the presumptive nominee before the Convention that clearly made it necessary to go against the popular selection process, rules are already in place which allow the Pledged Delegates to change their vote.

"Obama loses Puerto Rico today and clinches the Democratic Nomination!" Just doesn't sound good.

What I mean is this - as we have seen in this primary season, popular reaction to the very public existence of superdelegates has been "poor" to put it mildly. It offends the sensibilities of votes, regardless of whatever the rationale is. I understand the theory of superdelegates - wise, experienced party elders with political understanding to save the stupid masses from making a tragic mistake and nominating an "unelectable" candidate.

However, as we have seen in this season, there is a plurality of agreement that superdelegates doing anything that appeared to be an overturning of the popular process would have major repercussions. It looks undemocratic, and it is immediately the most disenfranchising thing to democratic voters you could possibly do. It's not going to happen, and I have yet to hear any party insider quoted saying they weren't worried about the horrible effects superdelegates vetoing the popular process would have for the party.

That's the way it is in modern politics folks. Superdelegates will never again be some unknown backroom occurrence. There is too much media saturation and too much access for that to be a possibility. Not only that, but this primary season garuntees that SD's will be a subject of future election processes for a long time to come.

So, basically SDs can't even do what they were "designed" to do. So the question becomes, regardless of what you personally think about the idea of SDs, what is the point of having them if all they can really ever do is reaffirm the pledged delegates?

All I've heard is some lame explanation that "this is a reward to people who have been so loyal, party builders," etc etc ad nauseum.

Give 'em some other reward and leave the selection process to the people. The pledged delegates are free to vote for someone other than who they're pledged to if something crazy happens - trust them with that ability.

http://demconwatch.blogspot.com/2008/01/superdelegate-list.html

Oh yeah.. another thing, I don't know about this whole "superdelegate bomb" thing people keep talking about. That would call too much attention to the very thing they're trying to DEFLECT attention from - namely the unseemly power of the superdelegates in the nomination process. They may have to do a mini-bomb between May 31 and June 3 depending on the outcome of the rules committee re FL and MI, in order to ensure that Obama secures the nomination on June 3 and it looks like it was the voters that made the final decision. But they'll only do that out of absolute necessity.