Thanks, Brendan, for injecting an element of reality into speculation about "what would I do if Hillary Clinton wins?" It all depends on how she wins. I don't see a likely path from the current status to Clinton emerging with the nomination, and it's harder still to envision an honorable path. I hope not to have to make that decision, but if I do it will be informed by an understanding of how she got from here to there. I can't issue a blanket absolution that whatever she does will be acceptable to me.

The Superdelegates are a check on the system, so that the voters won't select an extreme candidate by a whisker over a candidate who will far more likely win.

At this point, I do not see how any reasonable, thoughtful Superdelegate can look at the two candidates, and consider Clinton the more electable, let alone far more so.

If all these uncommitted Superdelegates were so inclined toward Clinton, they would have jumped in line behind her in November and December, when she had a thirty point lead nationally, and she really had an electability-by-vetting argument over Obama.

Now, it looks like Obama has not only weathered his biggest roadblock, but prospered politically in the process, Clinton is no better than even in national polls, Obama has 90% of the delegate momentum, and 150 pledged delegate lead, and the entire Clinton team looks increasingly desperate.

Every day that an uncommitted delegate doesn't declare for Clinton, is half the opportunity for her to ever get that delegate. She needs declarations of support yesterday to get this thing done, and everybody's on the fence (or waiting for God-knows-what).

Don, I agree with you that the nomination process needs reforming. One of the reasons for the bitterness between the Obama and Clinton camps is that there is no agreement on the legitimacy of the process - and that is because it is a poorly designed process. My preference for next time is that the superdelegates be abolished. They have played no useful function in the twenty-odd years they’ve existed, and this year their effect is pernicious.

I recognise, of course, that in theory the superdelegates are free to vote as they will, even to the extent of overturning the clearly expressed preference of primary voters and caucus participants. I also recognise that such an outcome is within the rules as they existed prior to the contest, and can thus be said, in a limited way, to meet requirements of procedural fairness.

The problem is that the Democratic Party nomination process is not some kind of law school seminar on procedure. It is a public nomination process with many attributes of an election. As such, in my view, the outcome needs to be seen by nearly all participants as legitimate. And it is highly unlikely that an outcome where the superdelegates overturn the clear preference of primary voters and caucus participants would be seen as legitimate. Nor should it be. I suspect this is why Nancy Pelosi and many others have suggested that it is vital that the superdelegates follow the “will of the voters.”

Evidently you believe that Pelosi’s view (and mine) is infantile. Presumably this is because all participants in the process, including voters, knew the rules ahead of time, or at least could have known them. And those citizens knew that their vote, or their caucus participation, was not voting in the conventional sense but merely an advisory expression of preference that could be overturned at the whim of 796 party elders for any reason or no reason at all.

My only response is that if you believe this, then you, and others who are contemplating scenarios that could result in the splitting of the Democratic Party, should be prepared to explain to the millions participating in the process that what they were doing was not voting in the normally understood sense of the word. You will need to be able to explain why those who have stood in line for hours in the depth of winter in order to vote have no reason to believe that their vote will count, in the commonly understood sense of that word.

It will need to be a good explanation, convincing not only to those who did not know the rules before participating, but also those, like myself, who understood them very well but participated in the faith that party elders would understand the foolishness of overturning any clear result of the primaries and caucuses.

Because for better or worse, I do not understand voting, even in this flawed process, as an advisory expression of preference. I understand the act of voting as one of the cornerstones of representative democracy.