Everyone keeps talking about Hillary's "super-delegates" but they are not 100% ccommitted to her right?

Howard Dean has already stated that there will NOT be a brokered convention

so that would indicate that whoever has the most delegates (not including the superdelegates) at the end of all the primaires will be the nominiee

all the talk about superdelegates is premature or even more likely immaterial this time around

Super-delegates can give a verbal commitment to a candidate. However, once they attend the national convention they can vote however they want.

The super-delegates are party officials, elected officials, etc. who are appointed by the Democratic party. They are in addition to the delegates awarded to the candidates for each primary they participate in. Almost all of the Democratic party primaries are proportionally allocated- which means that if Clinton wins 40% of the vote she'll get 40% of the delegates.

The problem the super-delegates will have will be at the national convention is neither candidate has the number of delegates needed to secure the nomination. If Obama has 2000 delegates and Clinton has 1900 the super-delegates have a lot to consider.

If they vote the way they've committed (and most have committed to Clinton)- then they're going to nominate a candidate who has the fewer of the delegates. That would pretty much rip the party apart. If I were an Obama supporter I would be irate.

So even though the super-delegates may have made a verbal commitment to Clinton- they are not forced to support her at the national convention.

I am afraid that Obama is going to get ripped off by Clintonista owned "Superdelegates". ...Many of which owe the Clintons political favors. Obama's only hope of winning the nomination is to have a commanding-decisive lead in the delegate count by the time the convention arrives. If Hillary does win the nomination (by way of superdelegates) expect lawsuits from team Obama. If she wins in November, it would be tainted. She would be a counterfeit president.

There are around 800 superdelegates...Hillary has about 220...Obama has about 170....that leaves over 400 still undecided..yes they are allowed to switch sides, but that does not even need to happen...btw, Obama is leading in delegates now, even with superdeleagtes included...this will increase after tomorrow

All I can say is that if; At the end of this race, The vast majority of the map has gone dark blue for Obama and the Democratic party thumbs it's nose at most of the states and nominates someone else - It will look worse than TERRIBLE for the party. We will be comitting political suicide for November.

Just hope that's occured to the superdels, too...

They can. Altogether, there are 797 super delegates, but most will not commit until the convention in Denver. Senator Clinton is working very hard for super delegates. She visited Edwards home last week to get his endorsement ( he did not commit) and has Chelsea calling governors.

Their commitment is about as valuable as the paper its written on, and its a verbal commitment. (In other words, they're not bound at all.)

They can change whenever they want. Heck, they could all decide to vote for Mike Gravel.

Now, many of them are very prominent Democrats, and they might be hesitant to switch after making very public statements in favor of one candidate.

You're right.

A superdelegate could be switched at any time UNLESS it is mandated by their state that they go to the candidate who won that particular state.

But for the most part, superdelegates are given to the candidate who won that particular state.

Based on the number of superdelegates that belongs to each state that has held its primary and/or caucus, Hillary has about 251 superdelegates to Obama's 230.

Yes, Superdelagates often pledge prior to the convention and many stay uncommited but in reality even if they pledge their vote..they can still change their vote, nothing really holds them to vote for whom they pledged for originally.

They could but they wont. I have been a delegate at the state level for years, I know a couple of people who are national delegates, typically we are delegates because we work for a campaign to begin with and not going to change votes.