If you're a voter who's confused about the role that Superdelegates play in this year's closely-contested race for the Democratic nomination for president, then check out The Superdelegate Transparency Project, and Superdelegates.org. 
They're two sites created by people who wanted to open up the process to the public, and make it more, well, transparent. We wrote an article about the projects here. Much of the data comes from a cool citizen-powered blog called DemConWatch.
The idea for the Superdelegate Transparency Project originated with Mark Myers, the son of a former congressman who, ironically, prefers that the public not know much about him. He doesn't see it as relevant.
Nevertheless, when pressed, he says: "I've been an independent for the last fifteen years or so. In fact, the only party I was ever registered with is the Republican party. I will vote for whomever wins the Democratic nomination and it doesn't matter to me either way."
He adds: "To me the process by which we choose candidates is so far gone that I would much rather advocate process than advocate a candidate. And when it comes to POTUS, I really only vote for the person who I want to be nominating US S(upreme) C(ourt) justices."
Jennifer Nix, a blogger who likewise wasn't transparent herself about her own political leanings and her support for Obama in an interview with me, brought Myers' wiki project to the public's attention, and as support for the project snowballed, it migrated to a site hosted by The Sunlight Foundation's Congresspedia project, where full time editors and volunteers could fulfill the project's ambitious vision. That vision is to compare congressional representatives' support for candidates versus their constituents' choice for the Democrats' nomination for president.
But by its nature, the project also politicizes the process more because by making the comparison, the implication is that the representatives who vote differently from their constituents counteracted their will. It also makes the superdelegates in Congress – whether you think rightly or wrongly – more easily subject to lobbying from the public. There's nothing wrong with this, but it's just something to think about. The difference I see between the congressional representatives opinions and those of the public are:
1.) Congressional representatives have to operate right in the bowels of the political ecosystem everyday and may have better insight as to which candidate could fare in the ecosystem to achieve the party's goals. (There's a lot of unbelievable shenanigans that you don't see being reported outside of DC.)
2.) That's tempered by the money flows and other forms of influence going on in DC.
While you may not agree with the Superdelegate system – which puts the delegates under no obligations to vote in one way or another – those were the rules that were put in place by the Democratic party, and the fact is that voters chose their congressional representatives to make decisions on their behalf when they voted for them at the ballot box.
"There's no rule but certainly as a citizen, I have a right to lobby them," says Jennifer Nix, a fellow at the New Politics Institute. "I consider it a form of lobbying for democracy – not for one candidate or another."
Yet the folks at the project at this stage are in talks with MoveOn to work together. MoveOn has endorsed Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.
"MoveOn is talking with the Superdelegate Transparency Project and looking at next steps and how best we can all make sure democracy prevails," says Ilyse Hogue, communications director for MoveOn.org in a statement sent to me Friday.
The Obama campaign itself is also asking its supporters to get involved in the process of lobbying the superdelegates. On Friday, it sent out an e-mail asking supporters to share their stories of support with the campaign – stories that the campaign can use to lobby the superdelegates.
One of the most interesting aspects of reporting this story is the apparent level of intense interest in this subject – hence the launch of the wikis. One of the authors of DemConWatch said in an e-mail note:
Indeed, there are several online indicators that there's a hunger to better understand the Superdelegate process.
Searches for the term spiked around Super Tuesday on Google, there's lots of discussion on the blogs about the subject. In addition, Rick Klau, who created Superdelegates.org, says that many of the search terms that lead to traffic on his site are terms such as "what are super delegates?"
If the Democratic race remains close, those searches will only increase as the Super Delegates' decisions move into the spotlight.
Update: Chris Bowers of OpenLeft has an excellent analysis with fascinating insights into the source of superdelegate support for the two candidates. "Instead of public officials, the main source of Clinton's advantage comes from among superdelegates that earned their status through intra-party elections," he writes. "...Stunningly, in states where Obama won the majority of popular support, Clinton leads the endorsements from party elected superdelegates, 51 to 40, which is the primary source of Clinton's superdelegate advantage. ...the balance of power in superdelegate endorsements currently rests with local political activists who have much lower national profiles. ..." The Los Angeles Times has a profile of who the lesser-known superdelegates are, and The Politico has a look at young superdelegates, who the writer Ben Adler says are cool toward Obama.
Update II: Just spotted this interesting bit from Cenk Uygur, and this story from Fox News.:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWELs8Q5TDY
