The past 24 hours have been rather disturbing. We've watched Obama accomplish what he set out to do. Since winning super-tuesday he has built up a huge delegate lead. He then managed to hold Clinton to a single digit pick up on what was supposed to be one of her best nights. Today he should be declaring victory, but instead his campaign has to contemplate how to deal with more negative campaigning from the Clinton side while trying to stay positive and focus on the likely coming battle with McCain. He has to deal with ridiculous assertions by the press and by members of his own party who seem to forget how much ground he gained in these 2 states over the past couple of weeks and how few delegates she actually managed to win. All of this is occurring for one reason: superdelegates. I propose that the system be modified to require their explicit assertion that a need to intervene exists. (more below)
The superdelegates were created to allow the party to choose a candidate different from the one chosen by the people in the event that the people choose an unelectable candidate or one that does not represent the ideals of the party. To me this seems a reasonable end. I believe the problem lies with the implementation. In my opinion both Clinton and Obama are adequately electable and clearly reflect the views of the party on most if not all issues. Given this I feel the superdelegates should not interfere with the will of the people and should throw their support behind the candidate that wins the most pledged delegates. This leads to a difficult situation; some superdelegates are forced to make a decision between this end and alliances they may have forged with the candidates earlier. Loyalty can be called into question and inter-party battles result as a result of different interpretations of the way in which superdelegates should use their power.
As the original intent of the superdelegates was to allow the rejection of candidates either not electable or whose views are inconsistent with those of the parties elected officials and other insiders, perhaps the best solution would be to make this implicit in the system. I would propose to have the votes of the superdelegates not count unless a majority (or perhaps super-majority) agree that their intervention is necessary for the good of the party. They can endorse whomever the desire, campaign for whom ever they wish, but would be expected only to vote to intervene in the event that they feel that the candidate chosen by the people may not meet the minimum qualifications in terms of electability and agreement with the party. If such a vote is sustained the superdelegates could then add their votes to the pledged delegate totals as they do now. They would then be expected to support the candidate whom they think is the best choice without restriction. Perhaps if an adequate number of the superdelegates agree that such intervention is not needed prior to the convention, they could enter into a binding agreement not to intervene and thus bring a difficult campaign to an end. I believe that a modification such as this could lead to a reasonable balance between the stated goals of their inclusion in the system and the uncertainty that they introduce into a race between 2 strong candidates both of whom would be supported by many within the party.