This nonsensicle delegate system is a carryover from a bygone era. Just like the electoral college it should be abandoned. The problen is very well illustrated when you have small minority in tiny states effectively making candidates viable or nonviable for the whole nation. Its silly and adopting the Republican model is even worse. It feeds the notion that only swing states matter and hurts the democratic process

Moving Super Tuesday to February 5 and putting some major states on the ballot at that time clearly favored Clinton. She had the opportunity to deliver a knock out punch by winning convincingly (by more than 15 points) in California and New York and she didn't. What that should clue Wilentz and other Clinton supporters into is that as a candidate Clinton has serious weaknesses. Thank goodness we have a primary process that has put candidates to a serious test of their mettle. This is good, not bad, Mr. Wilentz.

I look forward to Salon's future analyses of alternate-universe Democratic primaries. Who would be in the lead if Al Gore were running? If Kang and Kodos were in the mix? If RFK were never assassinated? If the US had never bought Louisiana from France? If some secret organization were storing Hitler's brain in a vat somewhere in South America? What if unicorns were real? This is a journalistic gold mine.

Dr. Wilentz contends that, under different rules, Senator Clinton would be far ahead. That is, of course, true enough. But the rules we have now were agreed to by all candidates (though Ms. Clinton herself failed to follow them in Michigan and Florida), and those rules have resulted in a small but significant lead for Senator Obama. It is absurd to talk about this process as though it were a return to 1968. It is equally absurd to say that it is faulty because it fails to resemble the winner-take-all electoral college system. Polls repeatedly show that Americans dislike the electoral college. But again, that is the system we have to work with. Dr. Wilentz is a bad prognosticator if he believes that Senator McCain has a chance to win New York or California, and most polls show Senator Obama with a small lead in marginal states like Wisconsin and Iowa. But this is not the first time that Dr. Wilentz has erred. Although I have great respect for much of his previous work, his last book, The Rise of American Democracy, continues the ancient and long-standard view of Andrew Jackson as an American hero. As Dr. Howe demonstrates in What Hath God Wrought (itself often less than insightful), the "democracy" that Jackson brought about was flawed and incomplete. Jackson was on the wrong side about blacks, Native Americans, banks, and John Quincy Adams. Had he served 20 years later, he would be viewed as a "failed" president. He, rather than Van Buren, was the greatest contributor to the Panic of 1837. My point is that Dr. Wilentz, like many Hillary supporters, sees American history through rose-colored glasses. (I am greatly looking forward, however, to his upcoming book about the Reagan era; I hope that he will not contribute to the sycophantic chorus that attributes the events of 1989-91 solely to Reagan, Thatcher, and Pope John Paul II).

This article is classic Clinton logic. The rules must be unfair if they don't support the Clintons. Granted, the election rules are arcane, complex and often illogical, but they were well known by all parties involved and have been in place for many election cycles. Where was the Clinton outrage about Florida and Michigan before Super Tuesday? Where was the Clinton dismissive contempt for caucuses before Iowa? The fact of the matter is that the Clinton campaign is behind the 8-ball because of their own hubris and mismanagement.

And who says a "winner takes all" system is more fair? One could make an equally compelling argument that the general election system is grossly non-representational, and it should be changed. What if you're a Republican in NY or a Democrat in Texas? Your general election vote hasn't counted in 28 years. The election process would be dramatically MORE fair if candidates had to appeal to voters in all 50 states, not just in the swing states of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida.

Just imagine the awfulness of it all if we had a winner take all system, Hillary would be the nominee. Her vetting would have to await the November election and McCain would devastate her. We should all be thankful for John Dean and the utterly convoluted Democratic party primary rules and Mark Penn with his inevitability strategy. We are having a real election not a coronation.

That 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. is not particularly democratic, doesn't reflect the will of the People about their choices, and simply favors the racketeering that has plagued our political system since the Democrats and Republicans figured out that they could rig ballot access so that they would be the only two 'viable' choices.

And Superdelegates? Like that system was ever about anything BUT control by party bosses. Any system of delegate apportionment that risks splitting the party because of the very real possibility that it will disinfranchise large swaths of the electorate is clearly broken. The beauty of the 2008 election is that the way the Democrats are doing things have finally had the flaws exposed, and The People are taking notice that their votes could be nullfied by a back room deal--and they really don't like that.

Furthermore, it basically rewards party bosses in a way not terribly different from the way that the Communist Chinese do things. If you can't grasp that, then realize that the 'two party system' that your teachers lied to you about in school has no Constitutional basis, and that the Will of the People is rarely reflected in the kind of candidates picked in the smoky back rooms of either party.

The one beauty of a winner-takes-all system is that no one has to think, has to ask themselves questions about what might be best for them and the country, and never has to look beneath the surface. I guess that's an advantage to someone, but certainly NOT The People, for whom this campaign cycle has managed to have everyone, be it Democrat, Republican, or Independent asking themselves a lot of questions.

Indeed, if the system made sense, there would be more parties, more chaos, and more uncertainty at the time of elections, and we'd be closer to having the actual Will of the People made known. In fact, it is the stupid winner-take-all apportionment of the electoral college that screwed up the system in the first place--and that was started by the political parties. Apparently the real issue in Gore v Bush comes down to the fact that if the Supreme Court had stayed out of it, Florida would not have been able to certify the vote in time for them to make safe harbor for the meeting of the Electoral College(I read the arguments and the decision, and that was the crux of the matter.)

The problem is that the parties don't want that, the slaves to the political machines don't want that, and neither does the media. Neither do the ignorant masses who treat their sacred right to vote like they are rooting for a sports team. And the media especially doesn't because a drawn out process like this one, because they have the attention span of gnats, and it gets in the way of reporting about Britney Spears and the latest bit of demagogy spewed from the mouths of people who do not mean The People and the Country itself well.

Frankly, I am glad to see Hillary Clinton having to work for every vote, and having to dwell in the uncertainy she has. She has allowed her campaign to do terrible things, and she has shown herself to be the utterly contemptible snake that I knew she was back when she wanted to take over the world under her husband.

If the system made sense, it wouldn't look a thing like it does. The public would not fund primary elections for party candidates at all. They'd caucas on their own dime. The world would have a little more uncertainty, people would take their vote more seriously, and we'd have something closer to a real representative democracy.

But like in 2000, real democracy proves to be messy, and scary, and doesn't do what you expect--and that is why the political cartels don't want it.