Nice story. Very informrtive. But I have a question. If they can't even run their own primaries, how does anyone expect this bunch to get anything else right? You really want them in charge of your kids' health care? Your health care? And what about foreign policy? They can't figure out what to do with their own voters in Florida and Michigan, and we're supposed to believe they can handle IMPORTANT decisions? This is a political party of morons, run by an idiot. It's being championed by a Pathological Liar, on the one hand, and an American hating, far left, 60's throwback, who's spent his last 20 years trying to expunge his white half. That's quite a choice. I can hardly wait till they take over. This is gonna be Jimmy Carterx10.

we would have an antiwar candidate on the list.

Mr. Wilentz suffers from a bad case of "If-Dog-Rabbit," as we used to say in the South---"if that dog was faster, he'd have caught that rabbit."

The system set up by the DNC works, in a typically Democratic way. The hubris of "winner take all" is unsuited to the Democratic Party and its members. Mr. Wilentz is indulging in what adherents of losing campaigns frequently do---he's saying that if the rules had been changed to favor his choice, then she would have won. Big whoop. Every loser can say that.

Senator Clinton has run one of the most incompetent and muddled campaigns in recent memory, and no one who does that deserves to win. She started out as "inevitable," well-funded, and reasonably popular. She is ending as insufferable, dead-broke, and wildly unpopular.

The only question is why did Salon print Mr. Wilentz' fatuous nonsense? Did you expect us to take this seriously?

This article is just downright embarrassing. He creates his own bizarro universe by cherry-picking stats to put Clinton in the lead, and then says it makes sense. I'm glad so many readers see through the BS.

I'm sure 40 people have already pointed this out, but don't you think the Obama campaign would have changed its strategy if the rules had been different? It's like saying "If baskets counted for minus two points, Wilt Chamberlain would have been worst ever!"

So Wilentz, at long last, reveals the basis for his months of whining on Hillary's behalf: No Fair!

Except that everyone knew what the rules were going in, and Obama played the game better - far better - than Clinton, who had the whole of the democratic machine behind her. More than anything else, this "playing the game" factor reveals who the better candidate is, both because Obama organized and executed better, and because it revealed the Clintons' lack of imagination and quick-draw willingness to go the low road when cornered. In that way, the primary process worked precisely as it should - Wilentz' whining notwithstanding.

The elitists in the party are using every means to enthrone Clinton. Specious arguments like Wilentz offers are the least of it.

It's not going to help Clinton win the remaining races when voters hear she's trying to cheat. And that's what they are hearing from people like Wilentz.

Michigan and Florida disqualified themselves by violating the DNC rules.

Whatever voting occurred was not a reflection of what would have happened had there been a full campaign and voting.

Changing the rules now will not fix the problem.

So what is Mr. Wilentz' function in the Clinton campaign? His arguments are almost enough to make one laugh.

1. HRC was quite happy with the proportional system and the DNCs decisions on Michigan and Florida when she and everyone West of Bangor, Maine thought she was a shoo-in. Now suddenly it's grossly unfair to "the voters".

2. There was no campaign in Florida and only her in Michigan (where she still only got 55% against "uncommitted" - would that say that there were 45% of the voters who were looking for "anyone but Hillary"?) To reinvent the rules and count anything after the fact is ludicrous and only helps - guess who?

3. Isn't it the Dems who have been moaning about the "unfair" electoral college system? Winner take all is a manifestation of that. HRC should agree that a proportional system is much closer to a one person-one vote system than is winner take all.

4. Why is it that the HRC camp keeps looking for other reasons why she should be the winner and ignoring the very rules she knew were in effect when she started her run. Probably because she could never envision that it would be a problem to her.

5. HRC: "But I've won all the big States". So what? Does she actually believe that MA, NY and CA won't go Democratic without her? Does she really think TX will go Democratic with or without her?

5. Superdelegates should have the right to ignore the pledged delegates - and, oh, by the way pledged delegates aren't really pledged anyway. You can imagine if the shoe was on the other foot - she would laugh whoever suggested it out of the country - as Obama should do with her. To ignore pledged delegates is to thumb your nose at the voters and say "I don't care if you wanted someone else, you're getting me!"

The bottom line is that HRC and her accomplices, apparently including Mr. Wilentz, will do and say anything to get her the nomination and ignore the votes of the primaries and caucuses in the country. And, please, don't whine on about MI and FL. Even if she were to somehow finagle a way to get the flawed primaries accepted she is not going to get a lead in pledged delegates or the popular vote (even though to HRC’s apparent surprise, the popular vote doesn't count - that is unless, to her, she gets more of it.

Why not just coronate her? It would have saved a lot of time and effort - and money and have avoided all of these nasty issues of established rules and fairness.

Salon is an F'n joke. I let my premium membership lapse because of how you treated Dr. Dean in 2004 and here we go again. This is even more pathetic than the 2004 debacle because your little DLC puppet is LOSING.