As the 2008 Presidential Election progresses here in the United States, scrutiny of Democratic superdelegates grows.  Since Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are in a tight race for their party’s nomination since they have both earned roughly the same amount of regular delegates who are assigned by their respective state’s primary or caucus popular vote results.  With this tight of a race, many fear that the candidate who wins more of the regular delegates representing the general populous may still lose if enough superdelegates side with the other frontrunner.

With this concern, some people are launching sites to monitor these superdelegates and provide their names and which candidate they support.  In her article “Crowdsourcing Puts Crucial Superdelegates Under a Microscope” from last Friday, Wired’s Sarah Lai Stirland profiles a few sites that are tracking superdelegates. 

For instance, bloggers at 2008 Democratic Convention Watch are compiling and updating a detailed list of superdelegates who support Clinton or Obama. The Superdelegate Transparency Project on SourceWatch.org, a collaboration between a variety of organizations, also collects a wide variety of information to hopefully hold the superdelegates accountable to the will of their “constituents.”  It also hopes to enlist the help of citizen journalists who will also keep tabs on these influential delegates.

I personally find it fascinating to see people harness the power of the Internet to keep track of politicos in situation like these.  It’ll be interesting to see if these sites will help influence how superdelegates act.

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