Mr. Wilentz:

First things first: you misuse "vaunted" when you mean "vaulted". As a history professor myself, this strikes me as a literally sophomoric error.

Second, whatever the drawbacks of "the system", Obama is ahead in the popular vote even including Florida and Michigan. I have counted and recounted the votes, using estimates for the caucus states where we know total attendance but not precise totals, and Obama is ahead by something like 140,000 votes, even if you give him NO votes in Michigan.

Including Michigan without giving any votes to Obama is blatantly unfair. CNN polling indicates that had Obama been on the ballot he would have won substantially more votes than the "uncommitted" slated did. MOreover, other polling indicates more people would have voted.

Clinton reneged on her pledge not to pull off the ballot in Michigan, a fact you conveniently ignore. She also campaigned more actively in Florida than Obama did, in spite of your disingenuous reference to Obama's "stealth" campaign there. If memory served, she visited Florida pre-primary and Obama did not.

The DNC set the rules - Florida, Michigan, and Clinton refused to abide by them. Moreover the will of a plurality of Democratic voters to date is that Obama be the party's nominee. You are a professional historian skilled at analyzing texts and I cannot believe that you are not aware just how disingenuous your article is.

I am aware from stories inside the Princeton History Department just how close to the Clintons you are, and how you get off on bragging about your connections with them, and on the trappings of presidential power you get to take part in - Bill or Hillary helicoptering in to visit, etc.

The vast majority of rank-and-file Democratic activists have absolutely had it with both Clintons. We are not part of the privileged circles where you have chosen to sell yourself. I have to believe that this story is driven by your own frustration that you will not have a Cabinet position in a Clinton presidency. My sense is senior Clinton supporters could TASTE the power that would be coming their way - they believed Hillary was inevitable. Now you cannot accept that it is not going to work out.

I protested the Iraq invasion on the streets before it happened. Women who protested with me received death threats. At this point Clinton chose to betray us by voting to support use of force in Iraq, strictly to preserve her political viability. IN the event that vote has destroyed her viability as a presidential candidate. Given your own opposition to the Iraq invasion, I find your continuing support for Clinton baffling and indeed inexcusable.

You are a disgrace to your profession and to the progressive movement.

... until some decided that it was better because it suits their own ends.

Hillary is losing. Deal with it and move on. Whining only makes all women look bad, and I don't really appreciate Clinton and her cadre speaking for me.

And why are you giving him space to waste his breath. . . who's to say the way general elections are run make sense. . . .seems to me that this proportional representation is fair--and let's people know that in every state there are those who choose Clinton and those who choose Obama. It also gives those states that are generally discounted for not being 'powerhouse' states a chance to actually make a difference in this drawn-out race for the candidacy. How can it be bad for democracy? or the Democrats for that matter? Other than the natural down-turn and sometimes nastiness that comes out as elections continue on. . . .but that isn't the fault of the system, but a choice of the candidates.

Salon--do us all a favor and save your money next time. Don't give this windbag another chance to degrade your editorial standards.

What a wildly biased article. Might as well go further and just say: If we were in a dictatorship Bush would surely select Hillary over Obama to be the next president. Or, if we could run cars on air, there'd be no energy shortage or global warming.

The rest of us are living in the real world where the rules for the Democratic nomination process were decided on in advance and ratified by all the candidates. Only when Florida and Michigan looked like the only hope for a stunned Clinton campaign did the unjust system become an issue. Only now that -god forbid- proportional representation is keeping Hillary from the nomination is it unfair and irrational. By the way, the problem with American democracy is that people's votes count for too little (all or nothing voting) not that they count too much.

The argument that this system handicaps the party with a nominee that can't win on the electoral map only holds up if petulant Hillary supporters act against their own interests and stay home, vote independent, or vote McCain. Record turnouts by Democrats in all states that have voted so far suggest that a Democrat is well positioned in all states this year as a result of dissatisfaction with Bush. Obama's support in non-traditional Democratic states suggests the possibility of a true political realignment and longer congressional coattails.

The real question in terms of does the Democratic Party process work towards nominating a strong contender in November is who provides the strongest contrast with the Bush legacy since disaffection with Bush is the Great Uniter of 2008. On these terms I believe Obama wins hands down due to his early and consistent rejection of the Iraq War and the fact that he is not up to his neck with special interest connections. No he is not pure but on a day when we hear that Mark Penn has resigned due to the conflicts related to his multimillion PR/lobbying business, we see that Bill Clinton earned 15 million dollars due to his association with Ron Burkle (what was the money for?), and we continue to hear about mega-wealthy Clinton supporters expressing concern that Dean refuses to intervene in the nomination process because only through that intervention can Hillary win the nomination; it is quite clear that Obama offers a clearer break with -Business, as usual- than Clinton.

Moreover, Obama has built his organization from the bottom up using his experiences as a community organizer (see Matt Taibbi's article in your own beloved Rolling Stone Sean). He has built his campaign around a large number of small donors. This is in stark contrast to Hillary's campaign which has been built around a traditional approach emphasizing big money donors and organizational support from people worshipping at the alter of Bill (side point- how can the Clintons be so outraged by the defection of Bill Richardson when Clinton lied to his cabinet and put many of them through the pain and expense of grand jury testimony because he engaged in sad and frivolous behavior?).

I feel that it is a remarkable stroke of luck that a person of the charisma, creativity, and bravery of Obama has come along at a time when this country needs a clear break with the policies and thinking of the conventional past. He has succeeded despite the structural advantages of the Clinton campaign (remember when conventional wisdom favored her so strongly that no one blinked when her campaign theme was Hillary's Inevitability?)

So please let's not twist ourselves into pretzels trying to justify Hillary's right to the nomination or bemoaning how the irrational process handicapped her. Any other candidate would be out of the race at this point. Hillary's only hope now is to convince the super delegates (read party insiders) or perhaps Obama pledged delegates (remember- There's no such thing as a pledged delegate -H.R.C.) to support her at the convention.

Articles in Salon questioning the wisdom and validity of the nomination process are just the kind of thing they need to keep the campaign alive and maybe pry some delegates loose.

Good luck with it.