WASHINGTON -- At the close of a painfully long primary campaign, it wasn’t a primary state, popular vote or platform that decided the Democratic presidential nomination. It was a small group --so-called Superdelegates -- that was the decisive factor in the race for the White House.

Barack Obama snagged the most Superdelegates and will be his party’s nominee. Yet the question remains: How did this relatively small band of unpledged Democrats  get so much power in the first place and what kind of people would be willing to go by such a pretentious name? More importantly, do the “supers” make the electoral process better or worse?

The reporters at Medill News Service in Washington D.C. tracked down as many of the 796 Superdelegates as time allowed. They were asked  their ages, levels of education, income, campaign donation history, and more. 

Based on our limited suvery, the typical Superdelegate is a 58 year old white male. He’s a practicing attorney and, not surprisingly, has a background in politics. Blacks make up 17 percent of the whole, which is higher than their share of the U.S. population. And even though Hillary Clinton and Obama courted different groups in their campaigns, their Superdelegates looked remarkably alike.

The numbers keep changing.  By “press time” some Superdelegate counts had jumped to 823.5 due to the inclusion of the disputed Florida and Michigan delegations at half strength. (If this gives you a headache – it should.)

Defining the supers

Democrats and Republicans determine their candidates by having them compete for more delegates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delegate) (i.e. placeholders representing each candidate) than their opponents.

The delegates fall into two categories – pledged delegates from every state chosen by congressional district --  and a group of independent actors known technically as unpledged delegates, but more commonly called Superdelegates. Despite their impressive name, supers are small - they make up only about 20 percent of all the total 4,233 delegates out there.

So what do they do? The Superdelegate system was created in 1982 to restore order to the way the Democratic Party presidential candidates were chosen.

Randall Calvert, political science professor at Washington University in St. Louis, said Superdelegates were seen as a way to stave off a potentially endless nomination process which, absent a clear winner, could go on for weeks. (If this seems ironic in wake of the lengthy Clinton-Obama battle, read on).

The goal, Calvert said, was getting a Democratic nominee “as smoothly as possible” and avoiding the chance of a three-way contest.

In theory, Superdelegates helped the process along by adding the experience of veteran elected officials who could steer  it to a speedy conclusion. And, Calvert added, the Superdelegates could, in effect, vet nominees “in case you had a candidate who was really charismatic but who was poison across party lines.”

Critics claim that a small group of unelected, handpicked elites could  decide the next president (and, they claim, this is exactly how Obama become the presumptive nominee).

“I think you want people who are elected by their state and their districts,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., herself a Superdelegate.

 Klobuchar believes that Superdelegates have a place in the election process, but that their numbers should be reduced from 20 percent of the total delegates to 10 percent.

“It’s just too high of a percentage,” she said.

So who’s right about the Superdelegates? Are they necessary for orderly elections or are they undemocratic interlopers?

Rewind a few decades to the first half of the 20th century. During those decades, the choice of the Democratic nominee was often handed down from powerful party leaders every four years at the Democratic National Convention. Only a few states had influential primaries, and the rest of nation stood by breathlessly and waited to see which candidate they got.

In response to pressure, the electoral pendulum started to swing the other way in the 1950’s and 1960’s.

Calvert said that because the small group of powerful party leaders were not viewed as being representative of the country as a whole, many states added primary contests to increase the number of delegates and shift the balance from the national party to individual states. Today, 36 states have primaries and a number of others, such as Iowa, have caucus contests.

This egalitarian gesture shifted power largely to the hands of delegates elected on slates loyal to the respective presidential contenders. Some of them were familiar to state or county party officials but many were strangers to the world of politics and Capitol Hill.

There was a downside. A state’s governor might actually be excluded from representing his state at the national convention, leaving the rank-and-file or a party functionary to lead a state’s delegation in choosing the candidate for highest office in the land.

“You need an element of seasoned politicians in the process,” said Calvert. “You don’t want to go back to ‘smoke-filled rooms.’ But you also don’t want an election that’s not representative of the people.”

So in 1982 the pendulum swung again in favor of setting aside some decision-making delegate slots for political luminaries and party leaders. These “unpledged delegates” came to be known as Superdelegates because they are often powerful members of government – governors, senators and congressmen.

Not all Superdelegates drive Mercedes Benzes. Many seats are given to “regular” people, appointed by each party at the state or local level.

Count Mary Jo Neville as one of these.

“There’s nothing super about us…that’s a media concoction,” said Neville, a 51-year-old Superdelegate from Dayton, Md., who prefers the less ostentatious title “automatic delegate.”

Neville, who chose Obama, said she hasn’t received any phone calls from Bill Clinton or Oprah Winfrey.

“Being a Superdelegate doesn't mean being flown around the country,” she said. When Neville goes to Denver for the Democratic National Convention, “I’m paying my own way.”

Most of the party regulars who nab Superdelegate slots are grassroots activists, community organizers (like Neville) or big donors, Neville said.

By the way, Republicans also have their version of Superdelegates. This year, there are 168 of them. It’s a much smaller group, and GOP “automatic” delegates have never played a major role in any nomination.

How they influence the race

Superdelegates were not created to decide elections – this year’s crop amounted to about 800 out of more than 4,000.

“We’re not this monolithic group,” said Neville. “We don’t meet up every Friday night and play cards. People kind of thought we were all pals.”

So each individual super usually doesn’t count for very much. And  for the sake of expediency, they often  support the  front-runner in the presidential contest in their party. But if the race is close, as with Obama and Clinton, the Superdelegates take on a larger role.

Unlike the “pledged” delegates in the 50 states who are bound to the candidate that wins in their congressional district, Superdelegates can endorse whomever they want. They also may change their mind even after pledging support to one candidate.

Howard Dean learned this in 2004, when his lead in Superdelegates shifted to John Kerry, who ended up winning the nomination. And Clinton saw more than a dozen Superdelegates leave her camp for Obama’s in the last few months of their campaign.

Calls for reform

For these reasons, numerous op-eds and letters to the editor (samples are here (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/192940.php )and here (http://media.www.lsureveille.com/media/storage/paper868/news/2008/02/25/Opinion/Superdelegate.System.Is.Super.Flawed-3231226.shtml)) have criticized the Superdelegate system, and insiders hint that there will be a “super” reform in the works after the 2008 election.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, herself a Superdelegate, wants to make the system more manageable.

"I think you diminish the number of them, you make sure everybody knows in advance what their role is, you make sure everybody knows how you can get to be one and you'll have a more open process," she said at a speech (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/08/pelosi-reduce-number-of-s_n_95715.html?page=4 ) at George Washington University.

 “There must be a more orderly way to do this,” she said.

An editorial (http://www.startribune.com/opinion/editorials/16487001.html) in the Minnesota Star Tribune called the “super” system “ripe for reform.”

Others have a different take. Neville said it makes sense to make sure that party leaders, such as governors and past-presidents, attend the national conventions. This way, she said, you don’t have an Average Joe running against Bill Clinton on a ballot in New York.

So that’s how this crew came to be so important. Superdelegates may ride again in 2012, or they may not. Even if the system remains intact, many of the supers will have changed seats as they step down or switch positions.