I actually tried to approach this piece with a degree of impartiality between the candidates. And while this piece would've made sense if we were arguing for a real change to the primary system, it appears that Mr. Wilentz is arguing for a change to a winner take all system that would benefit his particular candidate during a particular election cycle.

That's an intellectually dishonest argument, no matter who your candidate is. The premise of his piece is good. The primary system is busted. It's busted when IA and NH weed out good candidates. It's busted when it costs so ungodly much to win the nomination. Its busted that we don't have one day that we nationally vote on a candidate. Its busted that each state has different rules for seating delegates. I'm all for changing the system, but it seems Mr. Wilentz just wants to change the metric we use to count the votes, while leaving the systematic failures intact, simply because it will benefit his candidate during this cycle. That's not promoting democracy. That's campaigning.

If you want to fix the system, then really fix the system. And spend some time really addressing the issues the system raises. But finding a different way to count the votes isn't promoting democracy. It's just statistically re figuring the numbers to achieve a different result. Is that even really a win? Is it really even earned?

you just switched clauses!

Yes the system making sense would be optimal. We need to make things as simple as possible. Eliminate the cascus, eliminate teh delegates, eliminate teh elctoral college. The popular vote is all that should count. maybe Hillary can work onthat when she gets through all of this bashing and wins the election. As long as we do not ignore Michigan and Florida and stop trying to kiss Obama's butt becasue quite frankly everyone is worried about a race riot if he doesn't win, so they will sway everything to look like it is in favor. Why give him 50% of the Michigan and Florida vote? That was not the will of the people there. If they really wanted him why didn't they write in his name?

We need Hillary, she is the change we need. Obama is a Politician, the only change he would bring is his inexperience!

I went through the first thirty-eight pages of comments. Mostly people commenting at how stupid and bad the article was.

Then there were the sprinkling of arguments off-topic, like Obama supporters can't think and Michigan and Florida should count and Obama was gaming the system, a truly obtuse comment when referring to politics.

I guess the off-topic comments were necessary since it was so hard to defend the article. I am not so worried about the Clinton slant here at Salon, per se, but more the bad writing and poorly thought out arguments advanced. Wilentz' piece here was pretty much garbage, and since he has such close ties to the Clinton campaign the logical conclusion is that it was only written as a pro-Clinton piece, not as any real suggestion to advance a discussion of the primaries generally. After all, Wilentz could have just said that the Democratic candidacy should be chosen by the popular vote at the end of all primaries... but that would give the nomination to Obama.

The real story here is the amount of revulsion generated by this article, which I believe is not so much a measure of Obama's support among Salon readers as much as Salon readers' distaste for such poor writing. And poor thinking.

For those who didn't see it, selections from this post from Niigata are worth repeating:

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

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.

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.

A winner-takes-all system does not make sense. That is actually undemocratic. The only system that is just is a one person = one vote election. The electoral college should be abolished and the political games that it encourages.

The USA is a pathetic ruined republic, masquerading as a democracy. Of course, we all know money talks and tells lies that increase the power of those who hold more, and more and more. Vis a vis the democratic primary - what a complex mess...the rules state that the candidate with the most delegates or the first to 2,024 shall win.

What would happen if both exceed that number?

Hillary is a sore loser, and the author of this article is a moron. Let the Clintons take their graft of $109 million (and growing) and hide out in NY State with the rest of the criminals and child molesters. Bill will not easily find another chubby open mouthed Monica Lewinskly to place on her knees on the carpet of the Oval Office.

Another Clinton in the office who allows Bill access is repugnant to the extreme.

...like we need a hole in the head.

If we took Wilentz's advice, based on his deep respect for the electoral college, we would have ended up with Obama winning the popular vote, and Clinton winning the delegate vote. Wow, now that's a system that "makes sense" and is obviously democratic. We Democrats just loved that system back in 2000!

This is one of the only articles I have read recently that actually DOES make sense. Thank you Mr. Wilentz for your clear, concise, and unique perspective. It is thoroughly refreshing and actually quite true.

1. Clinton agreed that Michigan and Florida would not count. Despite that pledge, she was the only candidate on the ballot in MI. To call that a win is incredible. There was basically no race in those states and no results to count.

2. Arguing that states should Clinton won should count more in the primaries because they will matter more in the general is ridiculous. The author acknowledges that Obama may not win some states in the general even though he won them in the primary (e.g. Wyoming), but ignores the opposite: Obama will certainly win states in the general even if Clinton won them in the primary (e.g. NY).

3. The arguments about Obama playing tricks with the MI and FL results falls kind of flat when the real decision makers were the DNC well before this shaped up to be a 2-up horse race-- decisions Clinton agreed to.

3a. Criticizing the Obama campaign for urging MI voters to vote "uncommitted" is particularly weak when Clinton was the only candidate to renege on her pledge by staying on the ballot. Not to mention that urging an uncommitted vote was hardly self-serving, especially that early in the process.

4. If we are going to complain about playing tricks, the ultimate disingenous argument is that of the Clinton campaign arguing on the one hand that we have to respect the will of the voters by allowing the MI and FL "results" while simultaneously arguing that superdelegates should trump the will of the voters.