Regardless of who "wins" the Democratic primary elections next week, neither candidate will win enough delegates to win the nomination. All that will happen is that both will win more delegates in proportion to the vote. If the races are close, this means there will be no major net change, and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama's delegate stalemate will remain with neither a clear winner.

Unfortunately, the endless debates, countless vote counts, and exciting predictions make the process seem a lot more democratic than it really is.

However, Americans are now waking up to the ugly secret that in the Democratic Party, some votes (those of the superdelegates) count more than other votes. A lot more:

Clinton, former president Bill Clinton (a superdelegate himself) and their allies have been working aggressively for months to court the superdelegates, drawing on old loyalties to open a huge advantage for the senator from New York in total delegates amassed.

"One person, one vote? Forget about it. Some votes are worth more than others. You have to know the rules," said Donna Brazile, the campaign manager for Al Gore in the 2000 presidential race and a D.C. superdelegate.

Of the nearly 300 superdelegates who have committed to a candidate, out of a total of 796, Clinton leads Obama roughly by a 2-to-1 ratio, according to numerous counts. The lead is so substantial, her campaign asserts, that even if Obama pulls ahead in pledged delegates after Feb. 5, Clinton will probably retain a modest edge in the overall delegate tally.

But there is a catch. While delegates chosen in a primary or caucus are technically committed to a candidate, superdelegates can change their allegiance at any time.

The threat of a wholesale shift hangs over both candidates....

What if Clinton and Obama are neck-and-neck on the delegate count going into the convention and the superdelegates aren't just a deciding factor but the deciding factor? What if the Clinton super delegate "firewall" trend continues and these super delegates end up crowning Hillary king, even though Obama gets more votes?

True, all the candidates knew the "rules" going in. So, Hillary's delegate advantage can be considered "fair play." But if this undemocratic "rule" should happen to beat a more popular Obama, there's going to be lots of folks, inside and outside the party, rightly crying foul.

What has become increasingly obvious (even to political outsiders) is that because the votes in the remaining primaries will not be enough to put either candidate over the magic number, this race will be decided by a few hundred people -- known collectively as "the superdelegates."

I'd say the smoke-filled rooms are back! But I can't say that, because today's Democratic Party activists are about as tolerant of smoking as Iranian mullahs are of gay disco dancing. Maybe no-smoking-sign-filled rooms.

This is shaping up to be an all-out war, waged delegate by delegate.

They could have saved them the trouble by not bothering with the primaries, and just let the party insiders decide who gets it. I can't think of a better way to create a permanent rupture than allowing a class of young, starry-eyed idealists not only to vote for the candidate of their dreams (a man they consider the literal embodiment of "hope") , but then actually see him win democratically, and in a crowning blow, finally see hope destroyed in the most undemocratic manner imaginable.

To fuel the animosity this shattering of hope will cause, there will doubtless be lots of individual horror stories about idealistic delegates who found themselvse forced to switch sides.

The more I read about superdelegates, the more I shudder at the thought of being one.

Exactly who are these people? Some 800 strong, they are by no means experienced players of political hardball, yet Hillary Clinton has hired the hardest of the hardballers (Harold Ickes) to do precisely that. The hardball game has barely started, but already, there are numerous stories of what is euphemistically being called "aggressive lobbying."

As the LA Times relates, many of the superdelegates were not prepared for what seems to be their fate:

Some superdelegates are wondering themselves about the power they may exert.

"I don't think any of us got into this thinking we would somehow be part of a small group of people who get to select the next president of the United States -- or at least the party's nominee," Millin said. "Most reasonable people assumed the race would be over by Super Tuesday, if not in New Hampshire."

Debbie Marquez owns a restaurant whose specialty is chicken enchiladas in creamy jalapeno sauce. Christopher Stampolis is looking for a job now that the industrial recycling company where he worked for the last decade closed.

All over the country, there are reports of cash spreading and aggressive lobbying. These things just seem to go hand in hand.

Forgive my cynicism, but I'm wondering out loud whether any of these 800 people might have skeletons in their, um, closets.

You don't think Ickes and his ilk might hire dirt diggers background checkers, do you?

That would be very undemocratic, but Im not the first to wonder out loud, as did this anonymous commenter at Ben Smith's blog:

Does anyone remember Harold Ickes? He is baaaaaaaaaaack! He is the absolute and definitive dirtmeister. He was the person floating that rumor that Lewinski was a poor, disturbed, unsettled stalker. Just another stupid woman who idolized BC. Until that poor, disturbed, stupid, unsettled stalker turned up with that, gag!, blue dress.

Unfortunately, human nature is such that we run back to what is familiar and what has worked. She can not do that because this is exactly what the people want to get away from. You can not argue change when you are going back to the politics of personal destruction.

Does anyone doubt that Ickes is out there digging up dirt and scum on every single super delegate? For leverage?

One pundit nailed the description perfectly. Incendiary tactics. It is what the Clintons excel at. And you can bet, with Ickes on board, that is what he is doing.

How would this work, though? She's not going to blackmail 600-700 people, let alone powerful party insiders, and if she gets wiped out on March 4 in Texas and Ohio that's about how many of them are going to break Obama's way. Unless she's counting on a down-to-the-wire race where a handful can be flipped, this is crap. Rose-scented crap, but crap.

There's no known moral dirt on any of these people. But none was elected by anyone as a convention delegate. Many got their seats on the DNC as rewards for longtime party activism and fund-raising, with no one seriously expecting they would have anything much to do with choosing a president.

But things can work out strangely. After more than 50 years of not mattering much, the Democratic National Convention just might actually decide something other than an esoteric platform plan that 99 percent of Americans will quickly forget.

And these few Californians could be the ones who swing it one way or the other. The question: Do they deserve that role? Do you want them deciding the fate of the nation and possibly yourself?

With the Democrats' "dirty delegate secret" now out of the bag, it should be interesting to watch what happens.

What happens if cash and "aggressive lobbying" don't work? At what point does "aggressive lobbying" cross a line and become something akin to extortion?

I think the guys who learned the hardball game decades ago would do well to remember that overpressured, aggressively lobbied, and disgruntled superdelegates can do things like start whistle-blowing blogs (something impossible in the old days).

I don't know what's going to happen, but I do know this. When I predicted that Hillary would not go gently into the good night, I think I might have been understating the case.

UPDATE: My thanks to Glenn Reynolds for linking this post, especially for the quote, and a warm welcome to all.

Comments always appreciated -- agree or disagree.