Dems' choice may be settled in smoke-free room

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WASHINGTON -- The heroes of our presidential elections aren't the candidates, although today's campaigns do rival the epic quest of Odysseus.Our democratic -- small "d" -- heroes are the voters. Legions of ordinary citizens exercise their right to vote in primaries, caucuses and the general election. Together, we the people choose the next president. It's a shared myth that makes us happy, like the story of George Washington being unable to tell a lie about the felled cherry tree.The reality of presidential elections is a little different. The popular vote doesn't determine who becomes president; that's up to the Electoral College. And, in 2000, the Supreme Court made the decision. Many Democrats felt like they were robbed when the court picked Republican George W. Bush over Democrat Al Gore.This year, ironically, Gore may be among the Democratic elites who choose the party's presidential nominee -- after voters have had their say. It seems like a bad joke in a year of record turnout that's spotlighted the power of people to make change from the grass roots. Under party rules, in a tight race the next Democratic presidential nominee could rest with about 800 superdelegates, including Gore, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.These elected officials, former politicians and party activists are not bound to vote the will of the people as expressed through the primaries and caucuses. In the olden days, pols in smoke-filled rooms hammered out deals at the national conventions. We're way past that now; nobody smokes indoors anymore. Still, rank-and-file Democrats could wind up feeling robbed again.It's too soon to know how the Democratic contest will play out. Barack Obama, having won the last eight contests, acts as though he has the nomination sewn up. The Republican Party and its presumptive nominee, John McCain, think so, too, and have shifted their attacks to Obama from Hillary Rodham Clinton. This is premature.At present, Obama holds about a 100-delegate lead over Clinton, with about 1,000 regular delegates still to be selected. Clinton -- who won primaries in California, New York and New Jersey -- insists she can capture the nomination by winning the next big-state primaries in Ohio and Texas on March 4, then rolling into Pennsylvania on April 22.But if the race remains tight after Puerto Rico votes in June, anything could happen. Clinton is signaling she won't give up even if she fails to accumulate the 2,025 delegates needed for the nomination. Her goal, according to top campaign staff, is to narrow Obama's delegate lead enough to argue convincingly that the superdelegates should pick her as the stronger, more electable candidate against McCain in the fall."I think for superdelegates, the quality of where the win comes from should matter in terms of making a judgment about who might be the best general-election candidate," Mark Penn, Clinton's senior adviser, told The New York Times.Obama's campaign argues that superdelegates should go with the candidate who amassed the most delegates during the primary season.Then, there's the question of the delegates from Florida and Michigan.Their primaries were not supposed to count because they were moved up in violation of Democratic rules. Clinton won, even though no Democrats campaigned in the states. Now, Clinton's team says Florida and Michigan should count.That's caused a rift between black leaders. Julian Bond of the NAACP says yes, seat the Florida and Michigan delegates, while the Rev. Al Sharpton says no, many people didn't bother to vote because they thought the results meaningless. The last thing the Democrats need is to be seen as disenfranchising voters.Of course, superdelegates may vote with their states or go with the delegate leader. But some superdelegates -- longtime party activists -- believe they know better than the voters what the party needs. Let's assume for a minute they're right.Is it worth alienating a new generation of voters who heard the siren song that they could make a difference? Is it worth exposing the myth -- and sending the disillusioned to maverick McCain?(Marsha Mercer is Washington bureau chief of Media General News Service. E-mail mmercer(at)mediageneral.com.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)