There's an interesting discussion going on right now at Newsvine concerning the possible lack of mathematical support for the media's depiction of the Democratic presidential race as a deadlock. The author of the initial post on the topic asserts that Sen. Barack Obama needs only to win a little more than 43% of the remaining delegates to secure the party's nomination and that he's already favored to win in most of the remaining states. It follows, then, that Sen. Obama is all but certain to be the nominee.

In the comments, however, there is some debate as to whether this calculation accurately reflects the party's superdelegates and the impact they could have in swinging the vote in Sen. Hillary Clinton's favor at the convention. In recent weeks there have been reports of superdelegates defecting from Clinton to Obama, though much of this occurred before Clinton's much-hyped primary victories on Ohio and Texas. In short, the consensus of the Newsvine commenters is that while Obama seems likely to have more regular delegates, the superdelegates will determine the race's outcome.

So what happens if the superdelegates give Clinton the victory? I would expect the party to receive a lot of criticism from voters and the media for allowing high ranking party officials to hijack the primary from ordinary citizens. This kind of pressure could result in the party opting to do away with its superdelegate system by the time the 2012 election cycle rolls around.

Perhaps the best way for the party to preserve its current system is to make sure the superdelegates vote accurately reflects popular opinion, asking them to vote for the candidate who wins the most regular delegates. If that ends up being the case, however, it pretty much renders superdelgates powerless and negates any purpose the system is alleged to serve.

This analysis, however, requires the belief that if a candidate ever won the popular vote but lost the election itself based upon an arcane system of delegates, then America would be forced to change its electoral system due to overwhelming pressure from the people.

Ask Al Gore if he believes that.

The website RateMyCop.com is back online today after webhost GoDaddy took the site offline Monday for undisclosed reasons. The new site allows users to rate individual police officers in 500 different police departments. Police around the country became upset when the site's administrators began making public information requests for the names and badge numbers of officers. Citing public safety, police groups are even lobbying to have legislation passed that would make the website illegal.

GoDaddy officials aren't commenting on the reasons behind their decision to take the site down, and according to a RateMyCop.com representative, the company has already given them two conflicting explanations ("suspicious activity" and exceeding bandwidth limitations). It remains to be seen whether or not pressure from police played any role in the situation.

It's doubtful any law passed to outlaw RateMyCop.com would pass Constitutional review, particularly considering that rating college professors and other individuals has long been fair game on sites like RateMyProfessors.com. Police officers have the same litigation options against defamatory commenters as private citizens, and in their role as public servants, officers should expect some form of accountability for their behavior to the citizens they police.

RateMyCop.com founder Gino Sesto told Wired.com yesterday that he had already arranged for a new web host and hoped to be back online by last night. A whois search of the domain today identifies the site's host as HostForWeb, Inc.