It's looking more and more like uncommitted Democratic Party superdelegates around the country will be the ones to decide who wins the party's tight presidential nomination contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Vermont has seven of these annointed souls and we've already reported that six of them are spoken for: Five for Obama and one for Clinton. That leaves just one uncommitted Vermont superdelegate, and that person happens to be Howard Dean, our former governor, a 2004 presidential aspirant and presently chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Dean is uncommitted for a reason: As chairman, he's got to stay neutral, let the primary season play itself out and hope either Obama or Clinton gets enough delegates to claim the nomination and avoid having the battle drag all the way to the party's national convention. If that happens, the party's chances of winning in November will be badly damaged and Dean will probably get blamed for not figuring out a solution to the whole mess sooner.

The debate on superdelegate decisionmaking is between urging them to reflect the outcome of their state primaries or caucuses, and allowing them to make their pick based on what they think is "best for the party." Wednesday, Dean issued a statement to the Talking Points Memo blog offering his take on the subject. To check out his statement, click HERE.

The key phrase in the statement was his remark that superdelegates should "exercise their best judgment in the interests of the nation and of the Democratic Party."

I saw where some pundit thought his view was somehow an indication he was pulling for Clinton, but there's also been speculation that if he could speak his mind, he'd be for Obama.

What do you think, and what do think will happen -- both in today's contests in Wisconsin and Hawaii, and down the road?

-- Sam Hemingway