Salon will soon find something juicy to sink its concern-trolling into:

Condoleezza Rice as Vice President.

Talk about throwing a spanner into the works. The identity politics freakazoids won't know which way to turn.

"A woman in the White House? A black in the White House? Wait....you mean we can have BOTH??? And all we have to do is vote for somebody who supports the Iraq war? Wheeeee!"

I'm happy to say, "I don't want to count votes in Florida..."

Of course, the complete sentence is, "I don't want to count votes in Florida from a straw poll which was stated in advance would not count towards the nomination." Which is quite different than the situation in the national election in 2000.

I do think the rule which changed the election into a straw poll should be revisited... though I'm sympathetic to the national party trying to impose some order on things and don't have a magic solution to offer... At least, I wish they had just cut the delegates in half like the GOP did. But once the decision was made that the election doesn't count, it can't count! To count it now would only compound the unfairness of the original decision.

If you could stick your head up your ass it would be dark out.

If the system made sense, we'd elect presidents according to the total popular vote, Al Gore would be president, and the 8 year nightmare named George Bush would have never happened.

The electoral college is a ludicrous "birth defect" in our Constitution. If you want to see this birth defect remedied, check out the National Popular Vote initiative. It's a state-by-state effort to make the electoral college defunct, and it doesn't even require a constitutional amendment. Check out nationalpopularvote.com.

I don't think I've ever read such a logically challenged piece since the last time I read something by Camille Paglia.

1) "Under a winner-take-all primary system, Hillary Clinton would have a wide lead over Barack Obama -- and enough delegates to clinch the Democratic presidential nomination by June."

--Wilentz' argument hinges on a post-facto recalculation of how the delegates would have been allocated if the system had been more to his liking. As if nothing in Obam's strategy would have changed even if the rules were entirely different. That seems to me to be a bit of a stretch.

2) "These arguments might be compelling if Obama's leads were not so reliant on certain eccentricities in the current Democratic nominating process, as well as on some blatantly anti-democratic maneuvers by the Obama campaign."

--Nothing is more undemocratic than trying to count the results of an election in which your opponent was not on the ballot.

3) "Obama's advantage hinges on a system that, whatever the actual intentions behind it, seems custom-made to hobble Democratic chances in the fall. It depends on ignoring one of the central principles of American electoral politics, one that will be operative on a state-by-state basis this November, which is that the winner takes all."

--The fact that in November the electoral vote will be allocated on a winner-take-all basis might be relevant if Hilary's victories in Massachusetts, California and New York meant that she was more likely to defeat McCain in Massachusetts, California and New York. But since there is no evidence that McCain is somehow going to win those states if Obama is the nominee, it's not.

4) "In a popular-vote winner-take-all system, Clinton would now have 1,743 pledged delegates to Obama's 1,257.

-snip-

"But Clinton does not now have 1,743 delegates. According to CNN estimates, Clinton has about 1,242 pledged delegates to Obama's 1,413. Most of that total is based on the peculiar way that delegates are apportioned in 2008."

--Here I think we have Wilentz's dishonesty and hypocrisy in a nutshell. He would like a (more democratic) popular-vote system AND a (less democratic) winner-take-all system. And he tries to imply that there was something special about the rules in 2008. He might have more honestly said, "the peculiar way that delegates are always apportioned."

It also bears repeating: To assume that Clinton would have racked up the same margins of victory in a popular vote system is to assume that nothing in Obama's campaign strategy would have changed had such a system been in place. And to assume that an undemocratic winner-take-all system would be more likely to result in a nominee who would win in November is to assume that Hillary's wins in Massachusetts, New York and California indicate that she is more likely to defeat McCain in those states.

Sure, Sean, and if my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle!

Others have already said much of what I agree with here, but a few points.

First, the winner-take-all system is not as democratic as proportional representation. How can you argue that a state like California or New York is so heavily democratic lately in a general election is fair? Is this fair to republicans living in the state? What about third parties? I take pride in the delegate system because it gives some semblance to a proportional representation system, which I believe we desperately need in this country.

Second, primaries are not general elections. This whole 'general primary state' argument is a bunch of hogwash. Primaries are held so the party, or those that want to associate themselves with a party, can select who they want to be the nominee. This is EXACTLY where people in Alaska, Idaho, Wyoming, etc get a voice for president in the democratic party.

Third, the rules were clearly laid out for the candidates and Hillary is now choosing not to abide by them when she is down. She distinctly said that MI and FL "will not count". Apparently her supporters can't see that from her recent "count all votes" mantra the fact that she is an opportunist and nothing else.

"Yet in this, as has happened more than once this primary season, the Obama camp's reaction has not been to clean up the mess the party has created, but to benefit from it." - Obama is simply following the rules and Hillary, because she is behind, does not.

Finally, "IF" is not reality. Hillary supporters need to quit trying to redefine the game in the final quarter and be able to accept if/when they have lost. The rules have been set for some time and she has no right to change them just because the office that she felt entitled to is now getting further from her grasp.