Campaigns, surrogates, pundits and others are furiously debating the knotty issue of how superdelegates should vote at the Democratic National Convention in Denver in August.

Supporters of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) talk in dark terms of the election being “stolen” if superdelegates cast their lot with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) despite representing districts that voted for Obama.

Clinton’s adherents, such as Lanny Davis in a post on The Hill’s Pundits Blog, counter that the superdelegate system is intended and always was intended to allow Democratic heavyweights limited but real power to ameliorate the folly of the popular vote. If voters are heading toward the nomination of a Sen. George McGovern (D-S.D.) or some other such candidate doomed for landslide defeat, the superdelegates could vote for a more suitable or plausible candidate and save the party from four (or eight) unnecessary years of opposition.

Superdelegates don’t have a great record, however, having handed former Vice President Walter Mondale the nomination in 1984 even though he was behind Sen. Gary Hart (D-Colo.) in the tally of pledged delegates. Democrats got the landslide defeat anyway.

However debatable the ethics or efficacy of this voting system, there is surely no doubting that superdelegates are under excruciating pressure both to change their allegiances and not to.

Next week’s Texas and Ohio primaries may render all fears and hopes on this issue moot, but for now the Clinton camp hopes superdelegates can swing the nomination her way despite Obama’s delegate lead, and Obama’s campaign worries that this may be true.

An analysis by The Hill’s Alexander Bolton reveals that there are 18 Democratic lawmakers who have endorsed Clinton but whose states or districts voted for Obama. There are, by the same token, 11 who endorsed Obama but whose states or districts went for Clinton.

Those in the former category are Sens. Maria Cantwell (Wash.), Daniel Inouye (Hawaii), Patty Murray (Wash.) and Barbara Mikulski (Md.), and Reps. Mike Thompson (Calif.), Doris Matsui (Calif.), Lynn Woolsey (Calif.), Diane Watson (Calif.), Maxine Waters (Calif.), Laura Richardson (Calif.), John Lewis (Ga.), David Scott (Ga.), Leonard Boswell (Iowa.), Dutch Ruppersberger (Md.), Emanuel Cleaver (Mo.), Jay Inslee (Wash.), Norm Dicks (Wash.) and Tammy Baldwin  (Wis.).

In the latter category are Sens. Edward Kennedy (Mass.) and John Kerry (Mass.), and Reps. Raúl Grijalva (Ariz.), George Miller (Calif.), Zoe Lofgren (Calif.), Adam Schiff (Calif.), Xavier Becerra (Calif.), Linda Sanchez (Calif.), Bill Delahunt (Mass.), Carol Shea-Porter (N.H.) and Rick Boucher (Va.).

The Hill’s columnist and pundit Dick Morris warned superdelegates last week that their decision to defy or comply with the wishes of their own voters could prove the most dangerous and potent choice of their political careers.

The lawmakers listed above probably did not need anyone to tell them this, as many of them are calculating the likely penalties for those who switch or don’t switch.

But isn’t that what we elect our politicians to do — to make the tough choices?