Superdelegates

Anyone following the Democratic primary race will know that our native senator Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are in a close race. Hillary holds a slight lead in the delegate count, and the race would be a dead heat if not for the little-known Superdelegates: a collection of Congressmen, Senators and other high-ranking Democratic party officials who have a large say in who gets elected.

While the actual delegates won through primaries and caucuses are pretty much even (Hillary's 840 to Obama's 831), the Superdelgates have come out nearly 2:1 in favor of Clinton. The Clinton's obviously have deep ties and it's apparent that many superdelegates aren't voting with their constituents, but instead are involved in back-room politics and dealmaking.

There are still a great many superdelgates left: over half of them have yet to cast their ballots. Many are probably sitting on the fence, hoping a frontrunner emerges that they can push forward heading into the Democratic convention. Unfortunately for them, Obama is heading into a number of states where he's expected to do very well, meaning in two-weeks time we very well could see a dead-even race, or even Obama leading in the delegate count.

Howard Dean, head of the DNC, suggested today that it's possible the August Democratic convention; an event which traditionally has officially named the Democratic candidate for the party to rally around; could very well become a "brokered convention". This would be an ugly scenario, with lots of infighting and debate to decide who to pick as the presidential nominee. It could also potentially lead to one of the candidates running on an independent ticket.

It should be an interesting next couple of weeks for the democrats.