Meet the superdelegates

Tom Curry National affairs writer • Profile • E-mail

WASHINGTON - You may not know Lincoln Davis from Pall Mall, Tenn., but you should, if you care about who’ll win the Democratic presidential nomination.

You may not know Fagafaga Langkilde of American Samoa, or Heather Mizeur of Takoma Park, Md., either.

But they, too, are people worth knowing.

All three and nearly 800 other Democrats are considered “superdelegates.”

They are the 796 Democratic elected officials and party activists who, under party rules, have a vote at the August convention that will nominate either Sen. Hillary Clinton or Sen. Barack Obama for president.

The nominee will be the person who gets the support of at least 2,025 delegates ---superdelegates accounting for about 40 percent of that necessary total.

Forty-five percent still up for grabs
According to the NBC News Political unit, as of Wednesday, 439 superdelegates have publicly committed to voting either for Clinton or Obama.

That leaves about 45 percent of them still up for grabs --- that is if they haven't made private commitments to either candidate.

But even the ones who have made statements in support of either Clinton or Obama are free to change their minds at any time, right up until the moment that the convention begins balloting in August.

Judged by the dozens of e-mails we’ve received in recent days, many of our msnbc.com readers are clamoring for an explanation.

“I keep hearing about ‘superdelegates.’ What are they and why are they ‘super’?” asked one reader from Missouri.

“How can a person become a superdelegate? My aunt is wise and is very politically active,” wrote another reader, offering his own nominee.

Who gets to be a superdelegate?
Well, dear reader, maybe your aunt should be a superdelegate, but she is not, unless she happens to be one of the following:

• A Democratic governor, a senator, or a member of the House of Representatives
• A member of the Democratic National Committee, elected by party activists in her state
• A distinguished party leader, such as former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, or former House speakers Jim Wright and Tom Foley
• An at-large DNC member such as Richard Michalski, appointed by party chairman Howard Dean and ratified by the DNC membership

But, who’s Richard Michalski?

Michalski is the vice president of the 720,000-member International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, whose political action committee has given heavily to Democratic candidates. The Machinists union has endorsed Clinton.

Video Meet a superdelegate Feb. 11: Dan Abrams interviews Jason Rae, a superdelegate who is still in college. The New Republic’s Michelle Cottle and Peter Beinart from the Council on Foreign Relations join the fray. Are superdelegates a super scam? MSNBC Live with Dan Abrams

“It’s entirely possible that the convention will be a brokered convention, and in that case, I think that it would probably be very helpful to have people whose own elections and whose own jobs depend on our ability to elect a strong presidential candidate,” said superdelegate and Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, who has endorsed Clinton.

O’Malley said this on Sunday, two days before 60 percent of Maryland’s Democratic voters cast their ballots for Obama.

The label “superdelegate” is inaccurate since each of them has only one vote at the convention, just as those delegates chosen by primaries or caucuses.

When Democrats vote in a primary, they vote for a slate of pledged delegates, who are committed to one particular candidate. The DNC actually calls superdelegates “unpledged delegates” because they’re not pledged to vote for a particular contender.

And this year, for the first time ever, their votes may make all the difference.

There's emphasis on the word “may” because the remaining primaries in Wisconsin, Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas, and 12 other states may result in either Clinton or Obama having enough pledged delegates to clinch the nomination.

But, what if, by June 8, the morning after the last contest, neither Clinton nor Obama has amassed enough delegates to lock up the nomination?

Then the superdelegates will be the deciding voters at the convention. This prospect makes some superdelegates nervous, but others are taking it in stride.

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