This came about because the insane Democratic apportionment system which gives almost as many delegates to a landslide loser as a landslide winner, didn't produce a clear cut nominee. So super delegates are asked to do something you hate to see a Democratic elected official do -- exercise their political judgment and pick the candidate they think has the best chance to win in the fall. Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Howard Dean insisted it had to be done now even though the convention was 2 months away. And why? Because Pelosi, Reid, Dean and the Obama wing of the party are trying to sell a candidate with a resume and a list of accomplishments that you can read faster than a value meal menu and they didn't think Obama could stand up to 2 more months of Hillary Clinton. Given the way Clinton finished and Obama limped to the finish line they might have been right. But what did super delegates do when they exercised their political judgment? They looked at the popular vote and decided to choose the candidate the majority of voters in the Democratic Party voted against. They looked at the delegate count and saw that, not counting the 55 disputed Michigan delegates, Obama ended with a delegate lead of 77 out of over 4000 even though the democratic apportionment system awarded Obama over 700 delegates in states where he lost by landslide margins. They saw that Clinton was the winner of the 13 biggest and most populous states in the country won every big state in the northeast, took the industrial midwest, the entire southwest from Oklahoma to Nevada, Kentucky, W.Va Tennesse, Florida, Michigan, and California by landslide margins and decided they wanted the loser. And now they've got him and half the Democratic Party is ready to defect. Clinton's 19 million voters are not politicians.They wont say one thing and do another. If 50% - 80% of them say they will won't vote for Obama they wont vote for Obama. They will vote for McCain or a third party candidate or not vote but they will not vote for Obama. Exit polls showed 80% of Clinton voters in Kentucky said they won't vote for Obama, The same is true for W.Va. Exit polls in Ohio and Pa, showed that at least 50% of Clinton voters said they won't vote for Obama. In New York the number was 30% but its a good bet that if 30% are saying it 60% will do it. So how is Obama going to possibly win without the support of half the Democratic Party? Almost everyone agrees the Democrats needed Florida to win. So what are Obama's chances of winning Florida? About the same as Fidel Castro's. The way it looks now there are going to be mass defections from the Democratic party and its not going to be as Clyburn or Obama may try and make it appear, over race. Its going to be because of an spectacularly unqualifed candidate, an unfair process, blatant sexism, party elders that played favorites and said nothing when Obama attacked Clinton in an underhanded way but was all over Clinton if she hit back and pressuring super delegates to declare now and to declare for the pledged delegate winner when the all the primary results taken into account showed that Clinton was clearly the stronger candidate. They short circuited a process that should have been allowed to play out at the convention by more of out of their own fears than anything else. And by not letting it play out at the convention all they did was create a hornets nest of angry and resentful Clinton voters who felt that Obama was the candidate the party elders wanted in the first place and stacked the deck against Clinton. And now more than half the party is going to defect in the fall. If they had allowed super delegates to take their time and wait until August, let everyone have their say, let the process play itself out, let everyone air their thoughts and feelings and let everyone make their case until a decision was made at the convention there might have been time to mend fences and everyone would have gotten what they had to say out of their system which is partly what the convention is supposed to be about in the first place.But that would have been too smart for Pelosi and Dean. Instead the Democratic leadership ( if that isnt an oxymoron I dont know what is) decided to play Mayor Daly with Clinton voters ( for those who don't get the reference Google "Mayor Daly,Democratic Convention, 1968), out of fear that the process would go on too long and possibly damage the Obama kewpie doll, so they shouldn't be too surprised if what they get at the convention is protests of every kind, delegates getting up and walking out, delegates refusing to make the nomination unanimous by acclimation, a party split in half and the potential of Obama giving his acceptance speech in a half empty convention hall. What the powers that be in the Democratic party want in August is a coronation and so they forced the issue, and super delegates actually ignored the math instead of using it. Then they selected the weakest, most unqualified unprepared candidate for President in history. Which may be this year's punch line to the question, "how are the Democrats going to lose this time?" Instead of a coronation what they might have to look forward to is a revolution. Unless they can figure out some way to fix it.