As a child, if ever I would complain about rules or unfairness that, were they different, would make me happier or be otherwise better for me, my father would always say, "and if my bubbe had batzim she'd be my zadie."

If anything made sense about the way the people of the United States and our media understand and operate in our democracy, many, many things would be different. But here we are.

Under a winner-take-all primary system, it would only "make sense" to require the winner to get 50.1% of the vote and in those states where the "winner" got less than a majority, we'd need to have run-off elections to decide the primary winner.

Now, I'm all for voting and for operating as robust a democracy as we can, and an idea like Instant Run-off Voting would cure many of our electoral ills.

But we've got what we've got and under the system as it is, Obama looks like the winner. Progressive-minded people who are skeptical of the bellicose approach favored by Senator McCain would do well to get behind Obama and get busy wresting the reigns of power from the neocon blowhards who've taken us to the brink of economic and diplomatic oblivion.

Yep, if the Democrats were Rebumblicans then we would all be lock-step with Hillary. Can we thank our lucky stars that the Democrats actually want things to play out democratically?

Despite all of the hand wringing, by supporters of both remaining candidates, the system (proportional allocation of pledged delegates with a sprinkle of un-pledged delegates thrown in) DOES make sense. It ain't perfect. But it does capture the essence of our party: Grassroots at its core (proportional allocation) but needing order and discipline (party leaders as un-pledged delegates). We are "little d" democrats in a republic -- thus the Hunt plan compromise.

I suspect that the hand wringers are more upset by the outcome than the process. If HRC's money would have translated into a populist outpouring, no HRC supporter would be complaining. If Obama's popular appeal would have had the un-pledged delegates swooning from the start, none of his minions would be complaining either.

And as a proud Dem, I continue to be charged up that our primary season produced so many worthy candidates -- and that we are left with two solidly progressive, intelligent, and potentially presidential choices.

Like I said, the system DOES work.

I agree, the democratic primary is strange. The caucuses, the so called " Texas Two Step" and Michigan and Florida in limbo.

However, the Clinton campaign, led by Hillary Clinton, surely studied the primary rules before?? Surely, she was ready from day one to attack the primaries and know what she needed to do to win the delegate votes?

Nope---and what really disappoints me-- she has an excuse for every one. The caucuses--when she lost them--she declared them "undemocratic" maybe so--but hello--you did not know you needed to do them. Obama--the novice--did and created a grass root campaign to win them.

The "Texas Two Step" Hillary is quoted as saying--"It makes grown men cry" Hillary has men working for her--paying them millions of dollars for advice and they did not in advance figure out what it took to win in Texas. By the way Barack ended up with more delegates in that race.

Now to Michigan and Florida, In New Hampshire, Hillary stated the Michigan primary does not count.

Now that she needs Michigan it is soooo important. Forgetting the fact that once again Barack followed the rules, and was not even on the ballot.

Florida, please, the reason most voters went to the polls was not to vote for Hillary--it was because a very important tax bill was also on the ballot. Neither candidate could campaign, altho, Hillary did stage what I would call a little campaign staging in Sarasota,Florida. Obama on the other hand came into Sarasota very quietly and left very quietly.

Bottom line--Barack--the novice--figured out early on what to do to win the primary. The "Clinton Machine" with their 35 years of experience--were not ready from "Day One" to figure it out. Hmmmmmm.

By the way a "winner take all" primary--I do believe Obama would have been ready from "day one" to deal with that too.

Apparently Salon has decided to come out foursquare in favor of Hillary, even if they have to adopt her most dishonest and transparent arguments to do it.

What a piece of junk this article is. The author might as well claim that only the earliest states in the primaries should be counted, when her name recognition was the primary factor in a huge field of candidates.

Hillary's done. The only question now if whether she'll continue to destroy the party for the sake of her personal lust for power by ordering her supporters to vote against Obama in the general election.

She should be kicked out of the party like Lieberman. Hillary is pro-Iraq War (never mind her lies claiming the opposite now), and that's enough to put her in the other camp for me.

Her stated health care plan is probably better, but she's lied about everything else, so I figure she's lying about that, too.

Great clarity without all the magical thinking. Please, please if you are not convinced about the idiocy of the Rules, watch the C-Span video of how the DNC made the decision to strip Florida of it's delegates. This was a travesty in justice and political thinking.

The Democratic party contrived and gyrated with the rules and made the classic planning mistake, they did not plan for the worst case scenario. Thank you Dean and Brazille. What they basically now are spewing about the rules reminds me of the basic right wing value: Zero tolerance with no justice.

http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&products_id=200652-1&showVid=true

If the system were truly fair, then it requres a revote in Michigan and Florida. The Obama camp was willing to compromise on revotes.

Florida rejected such an idea and the national party refused to force the issue. So what this author is arguing for is to replace one unfair system which all the candidates agreed upon with another idea which unfairly benefits one candidate.

It is very dishonets to claim Obama is disenfranchising when it was the Democratic National Committee who made the decision and demanded the candidates go along with it. More importantly the Michigan and Florida did this to themselve and in Florida it was a REPUBLICAN legislative ploy which violated the rules.

If Clinton were advocating an evenhanded fix, she'd be in the right - but she's not, she wants delegates which were not chosen fairly.

I'll agree the entire primary system is broken and absurd and Michigan and Florida should have been allowed to participate.

But to claim Clinton would be winning if this was a popular vote is pure speculation AND another barely concealed attack on Obama as if he was cheating by winning votes legally.