How Super Delegate rules HURT politicians endorsing other candidates they believe in...

A lot of us criticize the super delegate system as being anti-democratic, allowing party insiders to overturn the popular votes of the people for a party nominee. For a party that values democratic principles, this is a huge negative that should probably be fixed in the coming years. I don't mind super delegates to be there as an "insurance policy" for situations like the already "nominated" candidate being caught committing a capital crime or someting like that which would sink the party without someone else to step in in those instances. But most of the time we don't face that situation. The pledge voters votes' should be allowed to stand and speak for our party.

Another problem that I perceive though is that these super delegates now are saying to themselves that they need to vote for who their state votes for as a super delegate to not warp this situation and "overturn" the popular will of the people. But it might be completely against who they personally want to vote for.

If a politician in a state where the Clintons have won the popular vote (aka Kennedy and Kerry in Massachusetts) wants to endorse and support a candidate that their state didn't support, then they are in a quandry. On the one hand, they arguably should vote for what the state votes for as a super delegate, but they know that the rest of the super delegates aren't locked into that rule and won't necessarily follow it, and that if they weren't a super delegate, they'd vote for who they support, etc. to help them win as a normal voter. The voters then ask someone like Kerry or Kennedy, "Why don't you vote as a super delegate for the candidate you are endorsing (Obama)" if they try to follow the "vote for what your state votes for", or if they vote as a super delegate for Obama, then they'll be criticized for voting against what their state voted for.

If they go against their instincts and either don't endorse at all or endorse the person just because their state voted for them and not because they support them really, then the voters will see this hypocrisy and make it another reason for voters to distrust many in Washington these days. The voter already has a LOT of reasons now for not trusting those in Washington representing them. This is yet another aspect that on so many levels contributes to this mistrust, whether the politician wants it to be that way or not.

This is why in the coming election after this one, we need to get rid of these so-called "super delegates" or at least reform the rules so that they are only used in emergency situations, which have to only be activated by a super majority of these super delegates to keep it from being abused.

and vice versa, for that matter (Democrats who voted Republican in Michigan, e.g.), not to mention independents.

So there is a legitimate question about who the voters they represent actually ARE. My caucus clearly had a lot of independents. They were there to vote for a person, not a party, even though it was a party-sponsored event.

Are the super-delegates, who are either officials elected by the party, or party activists, bound to vote the will of Republicans and independents? Or are they there to represent the will of Democrats?

That's the problem when you give them basically "god-like" anti-democratic powers of super delegates. This is something that really should be decided by democratic votes of the constituency. Now if there are a problems with the processes that people vote with that either:

a) allow party outsiders to vote to "screw up" who's selected, then these rules should be fixed at the voting levels.
b) where we have election fraud threats still with our screwed up voting machinery (which especially effects primaries moreso than caucuses).
c) people not being "informed" about they vote, then we need to fix the media and other avenues that people get informed to vote properly.

Trying to make the process more anti-democratic isn't going to fix the problems of "independents/GOP invasions", etc. It will only make the problem worse.

And as I noted in the post here, I believe by giving the politicians more "god-like" powers in having more power in voting who the nominee is, you handicap them, since they can no longer really campaign effectively for those they believe in inside the party as fellow voter equals, but either do so in a way that warps their power even more over the rest of us, or ties their hands behind their backs so that they can't battle with us like the rest of us might in campaigning for choice we all believe in.