WASHINGTON — In a year that has seen Democratic voters flock to the polls but produce two evenly matched candidates, some party leaders are becoming alarmed that the process for deciding an eventual winner is in disarray, and that the decision may come down not to ordinary voters but to the group of 796 insiders known as "super delegates."
Contributing to the tension is a continuing battle over the roles of Florida and Michigan, which were stripped of their participation in the party's national nominating convention due to a fight with the Democratic National Committee over the primary election calendar.
Now, with the prospect that neither Hillary Rodham Clinton nor Barack Obama will win a clear majority in the delegate count, a discussion is reemerging over whether voters in those states should return to the polls and help pick the nominee, voting this time in an election formally sanctioned by the party.
"We're headed for a train wreck if we don't get this resolved," said Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), referring both to the role of super delegates and to the DNC's decision to penalize his state. "It is a flawed system that has to be changed."
Donna Brazile, who ran Al Gore's 2000 campaign and is herself a super delegate, threatened to quit her leadership post in the party if the nomination were to be decided by insiders rather than the broader group of Democratic voters who have turned out in huge numbers. Brazile, while pleased that the competitive race has invigorated the party, said Friday that she was "deeply worried about our ability to ensure that this is a very smooth process."
The anxiety has risen in the wake of Tuesday's coast-to-coast primaries and caucuses, which left Obama and Clinton nearly even in the delegate count -- leaving strategists in both campaigns to conclude that neither was likely to win the needed 2,025 delegates even after primary and caucus voting ends June 7.
Republicans, meanwhile, have all but crowned a nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
Now some Democrats are fretting that the GOP can prepare for the general election while Clinton and Obama wage a bitter and personal war for delegates that would end in a swirl of controversy.
DNC Chairman Howard Dean sought this week to calm those fears, predicting that the party would know its nominee by the spring -- even if it requires some sort of deal between Clinton and Obama.
