This article is extremely well written and underscores that Obama cannot win a general election. I have come to believe that Obama is doing everything he can to disenfranchise 2 large states...Florida and Michigan, because he did badly there. We need those states in the general. Obama has lost every big state except his own. If he wins the nomination and loses the general for the democrats in a year that we have everything going for us, then we are an incompetent party. I hope the superdelegates are smart enough to understand this. Please forward this article to all of the superdelegates.

Leading Democratic candidate, inspiring, with a staff overloaded with lobbyists, a half-hearted nod towards univeral health-care, talking out of the side of his mouth on blue-collar and trade issues, his opponent self-entitled, snide, self-pitying, "not as far as I know" make me puke, versus a Republican who embraces the mad delusions of that drunk in the White House. Get out the Koolade, people, tie yourselves down. We're in for bumpy night (many many dark dark nights).

There are so many false premises in this piece, it is hard to reply.

But the main thing is that Obama mastered the system and Clinton did not. If the primaries and caucuses were run like those of the Republicans, Obama would have worked with that instead.

And the most hilarious thing is trying to uphold our winner-takes-all system of representation as a paragon of democracy.

It's true that the general election follows that brute model -- so what? Most of the "big" states Clinton won are reliably Democratic anyway. And winning among the Democrats in those few that aren't is not a reliable indication of general election outcome. So the proportional delegation of votes in the primaries obviously better represents Democratic voters' preferences.

This is the same dumb argument the Clintons are peddling to stay in the race past their expiration.

1. The Florida and Michigan primaries were invalidated by Florida and Michigan. No one told them to hold their primary early and they were told that if they did, their delegates wouldn't be counted. they did it anyway. Obama wasn't even on the ticket in Michigan. The Clintons, back when Hillary was the presumed nominee, accepted this fact and argued for the DNC's decision early in the primary season.

Only now that she's behind has she found her populist voice and started beating the drum for democracy.

Only now that she's behind does she find this process unfair.

2. And what of the voters who stayed away from the primaries in Florida and Michigan because they had been told; by the newspapers, by the DNC and by the candidates; that the primaries wouldn't be counted? It doesn't sound as if the author, or the Clintons, cares at all if their voice is heard or not.

3. Since when is "winner take all" more domocratic than a proprotional allotment of delegates? Winner take all puts large states in control of small states. It sounds great if you live in California. If sucks if you live in Rhode Island. "Winner Take All" is the tyranny of the majority James Madison spoke of in the Federalist Papers. It is part of what this country was built to avoid.

Wilentz claims that a winner-take-all system is the one that makes most sense.

He also claims that Obama's campaign/backers are using anti-democratic and Bush-like tactics. (Some real evidence would be appreciated.)

If we were in fact using a winner-take-all rather than a proportional delegation system, then many of the states would have been decided by a slim margin of votes, in many cases by percentage points in the single digits.

It was Karl Rove who understood you only need 51% to win the whole thing, then screw the rest, govern like you have a god-given mandate. If we were in fact using a winner-take-all system like Wilentz dreams about, nearly half of the voting electorate would be shut out by voting for Obama, only because Clinton won a small handful of bigger states. The rest of the country wouldn't matter.

Wait, who's using Bush tactics?

I think Wilentz needs to check his logic on this one.

Bush's tactics in Florida? Surely you mean the Herron memo on how to toss out ballots from overseas military personell. Or the double punched ballots from Palm Beach (let's see, which party dominates in that county?) Or the previously prepared telemarketing campaign to dispute a ballot prepared by, guess which party? Or using a state supreme court, which had already overturned a local election, to run interference for Gore. What party did these judges belong to? You and your kind are thugs, Mr. Wilentz.

If you want to live under a byzantine set of rules that govern our nation, vote for a democrat.

If you want those rules to suddenly change in order to benefit a particular individual, vote for billary as your democrat.

If you do not like that version of governance, the next time you pray, thank God that howard dean did not become President of the United States of America.

Read "If the system made sense, Clinton would be far ahead" for examples supporting these conclusions.

If the system made sense democratically, the general election would be on the basis of the popular vote rather than the arcane, counter-democratic electoral college. The Democrats are to be congratulated for using a system which far better reflects the will of the majority for their primary.

The writer seems to suggest that the party should be focused on strategizing how to "game" the elctoral college system rather than picking the candidate of the people. God save us from this kind of scheming, the kind that produced the heavily packaged candidacy of Hilary Clinton in the first place.

Professor Wilentz's argument is essentially that the Democratic Party's rules for selecting the nominee are wrong and that Hillary Clinton is actually the "real" winner. He ignores the fact that the rules were agreed to through a democratic process within the Party itself. Both candidates entered into the race knowing, and agreeing to, the rules. Indeed, the decision to exclude Florida and Michigan delegations was an idea which was originally championed by the Clinton campaign. The real purpose of Wilentz's article, then, can only be to undermine legitimacy of Obama's victories. As an alumnus of Princeton, I’m disappointed that University continues to allow this political hack to have the honor of being called a professor. Professor Wilentz should be subjected to the same scrutiny that Professor Cornel West has been subjected to for some of his outlandish publications.