According to the Iowa Democratic Party, a record 239,000 Democrats participated in the January 3rd caucuses, awarding a total of 45 delegates to the three top contenders.  According to my calculations, that means each delegate represents approximately 5,300 ordinary Iowa voters.  Each of the eleven so-called superdelegates, on the other hand, represents exactly one (1) Iowa voter–him/herself.  In other words, a quarter of Iowa's total delegates don't represent anything but themselves and their own interests.  I guess the thinking behind this is that a handful of party elites are more important than hundreds of thousands of “inferior” Iowans.  How, exactly, is that democratic?  And why, then–if our votes are worth so much less than the votes of these elites–why should we inferior types even bother participating? 

Here's a (full?) list of Iowa's “elite” superdelegates and who they've pledged to:  Congressman Leonard Boswell (Clinton), Sandy Opstvedt (DNC – Clinton), Congressman Bruce Braley (formerly Edwards, now undeclared), Senator Tom Harkin (undeclared), Mike Gronstal (undeclared), Scott Brennan (DNC – undeclared), Sara Swisher (DNC – formerly Edwards, now undeclared), Richard Machacek (DNC – formerly Edwards, now undeclared), Chet Culver (undeclared), Dave Loebsack (Obama), Michael Fitzgerald (DNC – Obama).