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• Saturday, March 1, 2008 01:28 PM

  A chance to learn a thing or two

  The great thing about this primary race is how much I've learned about the whole process. I've been a solid Democratic voter for 25 years, but seldom had a chance to vote in a primary and always found it annoying that two or three states got to make the choice. I think especially with an unknown quantity like Obama, the longer he campaigns the better it is for him.

  The history of the primaries and all the changes the parties have gone through in the past hundred years or so is fascinating and the articles I read about it wouldn't be out there if this race wasn't going on. And on. And on. The journalists and the voters who believe their candidate is winning want it to be over. But this is an historic campaign not just because of the candidates but also the way it has exposed and possibly altered the process. In fact, the founding fathers never expected the President to be chosen by popular vote. The Senate and the Congress were to reflect "the voice of the people" and the Presidential nominee was to be chosen by the party. We still have many vestiges of this system in place. When it comes to real change and unity it's probably still more important for us to focus on the Senate and the Congress.

  As far as I can tell it remains to be seen whether either candidate can get the delegates they need to tie up the nomination. This is a much more complex process than people realize. The 11 "wins" that Obama has just made aren't exactly that simple and straight forward. I wish the media would at least spell that out, but not many seem to want to delve into non partisan analysis.

  Here's just one recent interesting article: http://www.theweekdaily.com/news_opinion/briefing/35652/briefing_convention_chaos.html

  —bmaggie Read bmaggie's other letters
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