They don't wear red-white-and-blue costumes with capes, but the "superdelegates" to the August Democratic National Convention have powers beyond those of mere mortal delegates.

They can — and this year, quite possibly will — decide who their party will field as its presidential candidate.

Because the race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton is so tight, and likely to remain so, the votes of the "superdelegates" — fully one-fifth of the total votes at the convention — become critical.

Hawai'i has nine superdelegates, the four Democratic members of Congress, four top party leaders and a ninth to be chosen by the state convention.

Three of those nine have made their voting intentions known. U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye and National Committeeman Richard Port will vote for Clinton, while U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie will vote for Obama.

The others have not publicly declared their intention.

And here's where the game gets interesting. The superdelegates are free to vote however they wish, and can change their mind at any time.

Indeed, some Democrats want the superdelegates promise to vote according to the results of the Hawai'i Democratic caucuses, which gave most of the delegates to Obama.

But some, among them Inouye, say the very purpose of a superdelegate is to have someone who votes his or her conscience and political instincts. They are designed as a counterweight to enthusiastic but (in raw political terms) sometimes unrealistic party activists who tend to dominate conventions.

That has always been the problem with national political conventions. They tend to draw the highly committed and highly political. The result often is a Republican convention more conservative than the party as a whole and a Democratic convention more liberal than the whole.

That translates into nominees such as Barry Goldwater and George McGovern, idols to party activists but unpopular with the general voting population.

For the Democrats, matters came to a head in the chaotic and angry 1968 National Convention, in which party bosses rammed nominee Hubert Humphrey down the throats of activist anti-war delegates.

In reaction, and in an effort to put more "democracy" into the system, a commission headed by (who else?) McGovern came up with a plan that ensured the convention makeup would be more in line with the wishes of primary and caucus voters.

That led to the nomination of McGovern himself in 1972 and Jimmy Carter in 1976. While McGovern lost and Carter won, some Democrats feared the party was falling into the hands of zealots and outsiders.

And indeed, only a relatively small handful of experienced Democratic officials — members of Congress and governors and the like — were involved in Carter's nomination. That meant they had little real stake in ensuring the success of his one-term presidency.

So, in a backlash to the backlash, another commission headed by then-Gov. Jim Hunt was convened in 1982 with the goal of restoring the voice and influence of experienced party veterans.

Result: The superdelegates, or in technical terms, "unpledged party leader and elected official delegates."

The new superdelegate system made itself felt immediately. In 1984, Gary Hart (the Obama of his day?) and Walter Mondale were very close in popular delegate vote going into the convention, but Mondale had sewed up most of the superdelegate votes and fairly easily seized the nomination.

That system was tweaked again in 1988, the result of a deal between Michael Dukakis and Jesse Jackson that led to the proportional allotment of delegates rather than a winner-take-all system. The result, as we are seeing this year, is that it's difficult to round up a winning number of delegates before the convention when there is more than one strong candidate.

Today, Inouye argues that forcing the superdelegates to vote according to caucus results undermines the very reason for their existence. He makes a valid point. Why have them at all if they are required to vote in lockstep with primary or caucus results?

Still, by definition, the superdelegates are political animals. If the contest remains very close going into the convention, one assumes they will use their judgment and power to choose the person best able to beat Republican John McCain in November.

If the "popular" vote of convention delegates clearly favors one candidate or another, most if not all of the superdelegates will cast their vote with the obvious winner.

After all, being experienced pols, they know — if nothing else — how to count.

Jerry Burris' column appears Wednesdays in this space. See his blog at blogs.honoluluadvertiser.com/akamaipolitics. Reach him at jrryburris@yahoo.com.