Meet the superdelegates

“None of us want to be king- or queen-maker in that scenario,” said Heather Mizeur, that superdelegate from Takoma Park, Md. She's an elected DNC member from Maryland, and also a member of the Maryland state legislature.

Mizeur is neutral. “It’s been helpful because I have people calling me up all the time knowing that I’m not for one or the other, but that I know people on both sides.”

Potentially alienating one's allies
She acknowledged that if she were to support Obama or Clinton, there could be some unhappy Democrats in her district, the ones who support the candidate that she didn’t endorse.

Every superdelegate faces this same quandary: alienating the Democrats who elect them and with whom they must work. “People are very much divided,” said Mizeur.

“The word ‘superdelegate,’ to me is not a proper way to identify it. We are delegates, just as any delegate is chosen,” said Rep. Lincoln Davis, the Democrat who has represented Tennessee’s mostly rural Fourth Congressional district since 2003.

“I was chosen by a population of 630,000 people that live in the congressional district. I got 68 percent of the vote…. I think it’s appropriate that individuals who serve large parts of the state, who are Democrats, be part of the process. That’s just been a customary part of American politics, certainly within the Democratic Party.”

Why superdelegates deserve a role
“The reason that I support delegates of this nature is that we’ve won in a Democratic primary, where Democrats chose us to be their nominee, and then gone on to win in November in the general election. We’ve already gone before the voters — more voters in most cases than most delegates get,” he said.

Davis said he'll head to the convention uncommitted, which means we’ll only find out how he votes when the roll of the states is called.

Clinton won his congressional district and that fact “would have to be a part of the decision-making process that I will go through."

"Sen. Clinton won by a sizable margin in my district, better than 70 percent.”

He added, “I usually try to be sure I represent the wishes of the people in my congressional distinct.”

He also noted that, “In my district, the conservative Democrat voters that cast their vote in 2002 to nominate me — a pro-life, pro-family, pro-prayer, pro-gun Democrat — were those same voters who cast their vote for Hillary Clinton by a better than three-to-one margin.”

But he added that he doesn’t think the superdelegates will cast the deciding votes in the nominating process.

“I believe that by mid-March, a decision will be made by the Democratic primary voters on who the nominee will be, and perhaps the next president,” Davis said.

How superdelegates could be 'helpful'
If neither Clinton nor Obama has won a majority of the delegates by June 4, Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland says he hopes his fellow superdelegates "will be helpful in bringing us to a conclusion before the convention  — not using backroom politics, but using a way of looking at who is likely to be the nominee and who has the greatest support.”

Cardin is uncommitted so far.

But columnist and Democratic activist David Sirota warned this week of “a potential backroom effort to use undemocratic superdelegates to anoint a Democratic presidential nominee — with many superdelegates potentially using their power in defiance of how their states and communities voted.”

He demanded that superdelegates “really respect democracy” and “simply vote the way their states' voters voted.”

If Sirota's rule were imposed, then in California, for instance, all the House members who have backed Obama, such as Rep. George Miller, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, and others, would have to vote for the person they oppose, Clinton.

Likewise, Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, whose state voted for Clinton. Kennedy, who has campaigned tirelessly across the nation for Obama, was skeptical about the idea of superdelegates simply voting the way their states' voters did.

“Does that mean proportionately in each state? So you’d have some superdelegates in my state that was 54 percent, 43 percent, so do you divide them up or what?”

Kennedy added, “My sense is this ought to be decided by the elected delegates,” that is, by those elected in primaries and caucuses.

And if that happens, then the superdelegates will fade back into the obscurity they had until recently. And many of them will breathe a sigh of relief.

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