Just what are 'super delegates' and will they make a difference in the final nominations? This is something that's never come up in the discussions re this year's campaigning.

If super delegates can make a difference, why do we have them? Don't they simply place another stumbling block in the election process?

If you google "Super Delegates" you'll get a truck load of sites devoted to the meaning, history, and probable role of the Democratic Party super delegates in this years election.

The short version is that super delegates were "invented" in 1984 to help ensure that Democratic office holders and various party apparatchiks (usually a disparaging term but not meant so in this case) to encourage them to be active participants in the process and the party nominating convention. The super delegates are "unpledged" to any particular candidate and can vote as they please during the nominating convention.

The problem, as one Democratic party pundit said, was that when the "super delegates" were created in 1984, NOBODY ever imagined there could be a situation where they could actually be the ones to determine who might become the nominee. This is why Hillary Clinton is sending Chelsea Clinton out to chummy up to various super delegates and her organization (including, no doubt, Bill Clinton) is working behind the scenes pullingin every last political favor they might have left.

Meanwhile Barack Obama is heavily opining in public, every chance he gets, that the super delegates (who might ordinarily be expected to be the "party insiders" i.e. "Clinton people") would be derelict if they didn't fall in behind the pledged-delegate leader, which Obama fully expects to be.

Well, all this promises to make the Democratic National Convention rather interesting. I think the machinations will likely make the Diebold voting machine controversy look rather tame.

I find the "institution" of super-delegates to be one of the most UN-democratic measure to ever have been enacted in the voting processes.....It reminds me of Plato's Republic where (to some extent and simplified) lip-service is offered to the voters, knowing full well that the "mob" cannot be trusted and can be easily duped....(the Greeks actually referred to "democracy" as, "mob-acracy".)

Awww, now, let me take a moment to defend the Democratic Party. From a certain viewpoint, the Super Delegate concept hearkens back to the old "smoke filled rooms" of yore. Before you go all ballistic on me, let me explain that getting the party people heavily involved is a good way to get them going for the eventual nominee during the general election. As I mentioned before, the DNC never imagined the actual nomination could be decided by the super delegates, but that's the chances you take when you're working to build party unity and excitement into your system.

If the Republicans also had 'superdelegate,' would things be balanced out?

I find the idea of 'superdelegate' to be reprehensible--nothing less than stuffing the ballot boxes. How did this ever find acceptance?

And yes, Ray, I could Google it--I'd like to hear other people's ideas rather than a search engine'e.

We should all revisit Alexis Tocqueville's Democracy in America...In it, the wise, young frenchman stated that as much as America tries to flaunt democratic precepts, the country still craves a "noble class"...from the Senate, to the judicial benches...with its robes and insistencies on judges being referred to as, "Your honor..."

Is it a 'noble class,' CG, or is it the need for mystery and ceremony--just as various churches still offer?

If we simply wanted a 'noble class,' wouldn't we have just accepted the Bush family--who feel they can do what they want?

Wait just a second, folks. WHile I am disinclined to defend the Democratic party, I should point something out. The Democratic Party convention is just that...a convention held by the party for the purposes of deciding the party's candidate for President. It is not an election in the sense of a popular vote by the electorate. The party is under no obligation to make that process "democratic" though I find the irony to be especially delightful. The party is entitled to use whatever process it's members decide. Apparently the membership decided to use super delegates.

Do you ever wonder, Lawmage, if it is only those to right of the aisle who can employ logical thinking to a problem? All this frothing and foaming (There you go, Stone...ANOTHER example) about democratic process and did you notice how Lizbeth managed to subtly connect "the Bush family" to a DNC inter-party process that has been around for 24 years?

Here WE are trying to give objective analysis of a certain political party's candidate selection process and some folks use the occasion to indulge in their endless Bush-Bashing. It's Orwellian.