Letters to the Editor
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Hallelujah
I was getting so tired of the spin in most of the articles on Salon that it made my head spin. It almost made me miss this straightforward and objective article on the state of the "primaries."
I have heard the arguments, but have never really understood the primacy of Iowa and New Hampshire. They are hardly representative of the US, let alone the Democratic Party. The reason that they stay that way is analogous to the power of money in politics. No one wants to speak against it, because it will cause them to lose the support of those states that currently determine too much of the outcomes.
This primary season has been an unmitigated disaster for the Democratic Party. In the past I have been a devoted Democrat, but this primary season has made me question my allegiance. Of course, if I were not a devoted Democrat, I probably would not care.
The party really needs a national primary in order to bring back some sanity. That is the only way to bring the primaries back to the people and thereby lessen the need for superdelegates.
Short of that, the Democratic Party should 1) let states have primaries whenever they want, and 2) preclude caucuses from participation. The other short term reform could be to winner-take-all primaries.
If the Democratic Party wanted more of a representative process, it could count the caucuses relative to the number of people who participate, such that if you have participation from 1% of the registered democrats you get a proportional 1% of the delegates for your state.
Although I am very happy in the big picture that we no longer have a dominance of back room deals, looking back through history, it is easy to get the impression that the back room deals seem to have had a better success rate than the current distorted state of primaries.