U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye said he would counsel Hawai'i's undecided superdelegates to trust their own initiative and experience, and not necessarily the results of the Hawai'i caucuses, when choosing which Democratic presidential candidate to support.

"It's up to them. It's their decision," said Inouye, D-Hawai'i, a superdelegate who has endorsed U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. "But if they were going to appoint us to follow the votes of the state, you don't need superdelegates, right? We were designated as superdelegates to use our initiative and experience to do what is right."

U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie, a superdelegate who has endorsed U.S. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, said superdelegates are free to choose but he does not see how they could put aside Obama's overwhelming victory in the February caucuses.

"I can assure you, if there is one thing superdelegates can do — party activists as well as elected officials — is they can count," said Abercrombie, D-Hawai'i. "And I think they can count the number of votes that would leave, or at least not show up at the polls, if there was any sense that the will of the voting population who participated in these primaries and caucuses was being vacated by the superdelegates."

Inouye and Abercrombie reflect the split within the Democratic Party over what criteria superdelegates should use if they are ultimately called on to resolve a deadlocked nomination campaign. Should they use their own instincts about who would make the better nominee or should they follow the popular vote in their states?

Obama won 14 of Hawai'i's 29 delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Denver in August through the caucuses, while Clinton took six.

The other nine delegates to the convention, the superdelegates, are not pledged to either candidate. Three — Inouye, Abercrombie and Democratic National Committee member Richard Port, who supports Clinton — have publicly announced their preferences. Three — U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka, U.S. Rep. Mazie Hirono and DNC member Dolly Strazar — have stayed neutral. And three will not be chosen until the state party convention in May.

The national convention will have nearly 800 superdelegates — elected and party officials — whose votes for a presidential nominee are not bound by the results of any primary or caucus.

Obama leads Clinton among delegates whose convention votes were determined by primaries or caucuses, at 1,404 to 1,249.

But neither candidate is on track to win enough pledged delegates in primaries and caucuses to clinch the nomination — 2,024 are needed — so the superdelegates could decide the outcome.

POTENTIAL RESENTMENT

Obama and Clinton and their surrogates nationally have been courting undecided superdelegates, with Obama's allies mostly urging them to follow the popular vote — in which Obama leads — and the Clinton faithful appealing for them to use their discretion because neither candidate will likely have a majority of delegates after the primaries and caucuses.

Local Obama and Clinton supporters have been quietly doing outreach behind the scenes. Many activists are also trying to influence delegates to the state convention, where the party chair, vice chair and an unpledged add-on superdelegate will be selected.

But some of the party's insiders have said they are largely avoiding high-pressure tactics. Many privately hope the nomination will resolve itself without putting Hawai'i superdelegates on the spot, so the party can build toward the November campaign against the Republican nominee.

Some local Democrats, keen on convincing some of the record 37,000 people who participated in the caucuses to stay with the party, hope to avoid a prolonged internal battle that could create hard feelings within the party's already splintered factions.

Some of these Democrats, for example, fought privately to discourage a recount that some Obama and Clinton partisans had wanted after witnessing caucus irregularities caused by the high turnout.

Others do not want to see the superdelegate issue completely overshadow the contest for party chairman, since the new chairman will have the assignment of holding on to the new Democrats drawn to the party caucuses and improving the party's lagging finances.

Brian Schatz, a former Makiki state representative and local Obama volunteer, and Annelle Amaral, a former Kunia state representative and O'ahu party chair, have shown interest in the post.

"When the dust has settled, whoever is the nominee (for president), we as Democrats must be together," Randy Perreira, executive director of the Hawai'i Government Employees Association, said of the superdelegate question.

BROADER ISSUES

Superdelegates — a term coined for unpledged delegates — were created by the party in the early 1980s to give elected leaders and party officials more of a role at the national conventions. The idea was that superdelegates could be trusted to break deadlocks or save the party convention from nominating a candidate who might not have the best chance of getting elected.

Kareem Crayton, an assistant professor of law and political science at the University of Southern California, said the thought was that superdelegates would consider broader issues such as electability and what is best for the party in the long term rather than which candidates are favored by their home states.

"So they selected people who would both have connections to the electorates in different states — senators, governors, important people within the party — but they also have people who are long-time party activists, people who aren't in this just because of a particular slate of candidates but who will be here today and tomorrow and will have to live with the consequences, win, lose or draw."

Two of the undecided superdelegates from Hawai'i — Akaka and Hirono — have said they will seriously consider the results of the Hawai'i caucuses when making their decisions.

Akaka has explained that he chooses not to endorse a candidate early because so many in the Democratic field had helped him win re-election in 2006. Hirono, who endorsed former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards in 2004, told the Hawai'i Tribune-Herald last week that she wants to hear feedback from her constituents.

Strazar, the DNC member and executive director of the Lyman Museum on the Big Island, said she will look at how the campaign takes shape nationally after the primary in Pennsylvania in late April. She said she has given herself no personal deadline.

"My criteria is still a nationwide criteria in terms of seeing the lineup of the votes," she said.

Strazar said she had spoken with Obama but had not yet talked with Clinton.

She said she has been receiving telephone calls and letters from people across the country, with many Obama supporters urging her to follow the Hawai'i caucuses or the votes in their home states.

"Some are nice. Some are not so nice. Some actually have threatening tones and such," she said. "I talked to Obama himself and I'm aware that individuals will do what they want. I think Obama and his campaign are concerned that when people do that they make a bad name for the campaign."

FROM THE SIDELINES

The past three state party chairmen and the current interim chairwoman each has different advice for superdelegates.

Jeani Withington, a Big Island attorney and interim chairwoman, said elected officials should have the discretion to choose as they see fit because they are the closest to the candidates. The party leaders, she believes, should generally follow the results of the Hawai'i caucuses.

"I think they should probably reflect the wishes of the people of the state," she said.

Brickwood Galuteria, a former party chairman now running for the state Senate, described it as a test of leadership but said the superdelegates should go with the caucus results.

"It's probably politically much wiser to go with the choice of the majority," he said.

Alex Santiago, a former party chairman who is now a lobbyist, said superdelegates should consider the caucus results but balance it with their own judgment.

"One of the reasons you are a superdelegate is you are thought of as having good judgment. Obviously, I would encourage them to take a look at the phenomenon that has gone on. It's unheard of," he said of local interest in the campaign.

"The superdelegates are wise enough to know this is very much out of the ordinary."

Mike McCartney, a former party chairman who is now executive director of the Hawai'i State Teachers Association, said superdelegates should follow their own counsel and think about what will be best for the party, and the nation, come November.

"There is a reason why we have superdelegates. It was designed to be elder statesmen to figure out what's best for the country," he said. "It's a matter of conscience."

Reach Derrick DePledge at ddepledge@honoluluadvertiser.com.