For months, Washingtonian mating rituals have occurred behind closed doors between the presidential campaigns of Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama and powerful Democratic superdelegates.

Wooing, however, is a process with an ending.

One day – and we hope that day is soon – the smitten campaigns expect to have their advances either returned, or respectfully rebuffed. The latter is surely heartbreaking, but, then again, nothing is fair in love – or politics.

There’s another wrinkle: the longer these superdelegates take to choose, they only weaken their eventual influence. Political power is measured in dollars, sure, but the real coin of the realm is loyalty.

There’s value in joining the winning side, ASAP.

This begs the question about why some superdelegates (who, by now, can determine the hard-fought Democratic nomination) are taking sweet time in selecting Clinton or Obama.

Perhaps they are caught up in the chase, lovestruck, as it were. Maybe they think by holding out they can increase their coinage with the eventual winner by pushing them over the delegate-count top.

This is like a basketball player, waiting for the final second to take the game-winning shot. Yes, you might make it.

But you look real foolish if you don’t.

Either way, however, this strategy is shortsighted. Campaigns, at this nail-biting, back-stabbing time, have no time for fence-sitters. They need supporters, allies, comrades-in-arms and frres-de-guerre. There’s a battle coming.

By standing on the sidelines, reticent superdelegates run the risk of being left behind.

We respect the enormity of this decision for those who must make it, but decision-making ability is an asset that landed these folks as superdelegates in the first place. Wealth and power didn’t do it. Playing politics sure did.

So, it’s arguable there is no better assembly, in this country to be tasked with making hard political decisions than superdelegates. It’s not their first time around the block with this stuff, after all.

Which, again, it makes remaining undecided seem so.illogical.

Crystallizing this sentiment was Rep. Tom Allen’s endorsement of Obama last week. Allen is a friend of the Clintons, and though Obama won Maine’s primary, Clinton fared well in regions crucial to Allen’s Senate hopes.

He waited a long time, but not too long.

Other superdelegates, still troubled by their decision, should reflect upon his sentiment.

“What I believe is important is that on both sides there is respect and fairness, and that we find a way to have a graceful end to this primary campaign,” Allen said.

This is a veiled message to other holdouts.

For the good of party and country, it’s time to come in from the cold.