Buckle up Obamamaniacs: Your soaring hopes for a new kind of politics could soon be heading towards for some serious turbulence. 'Cause it appears that the Democratic race could be settled by Howard Dean and a very loosely organized, 800-man army of political apparatchiks.

As a Washington Post reporter put it yesterday, "It is now basically mathematically impossible for either Clinton or Obama to win the nomination through the regular voting process (meaning the super-delegates decide this one, baby)!"

Super-delegates are essentially the thick, flabby layer of Democratic Establishment (elected officials and party functionaries) that the party flopped over the top of the primary process in the early 1980s because they didn't fully trust the voters to select a viable candidate. The idea was that a new block of delegates unbound by primary election results but with strong loyalties to the party could help put things back on track if voters were steering in a George McGovern/Jimmy Carter kind of direction instead of in the desired, say, Teddy Kennedy direction.

But these delegates (796, not counting Florida and Michigan) are technically unbound, "have the loyalty of a starving billy-goat," and are mostly political creatures with all the attendant needs, ambitions, and cowardliness. It remains in question if Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean will want or be able to provide much leadership beyond telling everyone that "some sort of arrangement" needs to be brokered before the August convention rather than during it if you please.

Barack Obama has persuaded many voters that he would be a better general election candidate against the Republicans, and he's even been able to lure some big fat establishment rhinos into his lush, lesser-known terrain. But if it actually does come down to a back-room deal-making brawl that generally entails a conniving mixture of inducements, threats, and straight-up lies, who would you pick to win? Same here. But don't give up—for information about how you can still make a difference, please contact Nick Curran, Re-Defeat President Gravel in 2012 Headquarters c/o Radar magazine.