The rules for electing the democratic nominee are not democratic -- caucuses, superdelegates, weighted voting, double voting, non-secret voting -- its a mess. It needs to be fixed for 2012.
But we're stuck with it for now. And that means the superdelegates will decided this race.
Most seem to agree that the supers should follow the "will of the people" but what is that? Is it the pledged delegates? And should pledged delegates won in caucuses be viewed differently than the outcomes of primaries. Hillary's campaign has argued that the caucus system isn't worthy of hallowed "will of the people" respect, and tonight's outcome seems destined to prove it. If she wins the primary, but he wins the caucuses by a sizable margin, it shows that the caucuses do not reflect the will of the people. Everyone got to vote in the primary -- that was the will of the people.
Remember Obama backers, your guy can't win this at the ballot box. Obama backers like to talk about "the math" but that's the math. For the first time on 24 years, no person will win enough pledged delegates to secure a nomination, which leaves it to the supers.
If Hillary keeps on track and wins the TX primary tonight, but gets less delegates because of the TX caucus, it only proves her point -- that pledged delegates don't reflect the will of the people. The additional delegates that Obama garned at the caucus are not more legitimate than the superdelegate system. Those delegates count, but they are not worthy of deference.
So Hillary needs to gather her momentum and get a winning streak going. If she's got more votes at the end of this, I really don't care who has more delegates. That's still an uphill fight, but she can do it.
If Obama wants to end this thing, he should win some key races -- at the polls.