“Quite a few people seem confused about the current state of the Democratic nomination race. But the essentials are simple: Hillary Clinton has a large lead in both pledged delegates and the popular vote so far. (In Democratic primaries, delegate allocation is roughly proportional to votes.) If you ask how that’s possible — Bernie Sanders just won seven states in a row! — you need to realize that those seven states have a combined population of about 20 million. Meanwhile, Florida alone also has about 20 million people — and Mrs. Clinton won it by a 30-point margin.

To overtake her, Mr. Sanders would have to win the remaining contests by an average 13-point margin, a number that will almost surely go up after the New York primary, even if he does much better than current polls suggest. That’s not impossible, but it’s highly unlikely.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/15/opinion/the-pastrami-principle.html?ref=opinion

For more on the popular vote:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/apr/05/hillary-clinton/does-clinton-really-have-25-million-more-votes-san/

http://www.refinery29.com/2016/04/108240/samantha-bee-explains-superdelegates

I see the problem. You think there is such a thing as “rules”.

The only things you can enforce in a voluntary association are contractual obligations. That requires consideration– you pay money to “join” the party, and the party in return guarantees that your vote will count in selecting the candidate. Then, the government can enforce that through the courts.

There’s no reason you can’t form such an organization with such a structure. The thing is, people don’t seem to be willing to go to the effort of voting, much less paying money up front for the privilege.

If you can figure out a way around that fact, and collect a few million members, perhaps I will join. But I doubt you can do it; you are thinking of something along the lines of Athenian democracy, which wasn’t itself democratic with respect to the majority of the population. It was pretty much the same.. elites making decisions, and a bunch of other people with no say.

ZEBRA: “If the majority of the primary voters vote for Hillary, and she is the nominee, you will still say “we wuz robbed”, because the establishment happens to also favor Hillary?”

No: I would say she won the nomination. Why?

The DNC has no rules which state the nominated candidate must be the most popular. The “democracy” part applies only when a person creates their own political party and gains the majority vote at the general election— i.e., never.

Now you are sounding a bit illogical.

If the majority of the primary voters vote for Hillary, and she is the nominee, you will still say “we wuz robbed”, because the establishment happens to also favor Hillary?

Other than you being the dictator who decides (instead of the DNC), what is your solution?

You can’t legally restrict who runs for President if that person is Constitutionally qualified. So how would you stop any party from applying whatever rules they like to picking a candidate to support?

From the web page Donal posted a link to:

Sanders probably has no chance. He will be super-delegated out of the nomination.

If I understand what Greg here has written (and I admit I am not very intelligent), it does not matter who the “super delegates” vote for. It also does not matter whom party members vote for. If tens of millions of Democrat Party members vote for Taylor Swift as the party’s candidate for president, and there are no votes for Clinton at all, the DNC is still allowed to make Clinton the party’s nominated candidate. The voting to nominate a candidate is only a pretense to lend a false legitimacy for the candidate, and “super delegates” are designed to boost that pretense in case an “outsider” such as Taylor Swift or Bernie Sanders is more popular among party members.

The pretense of legitimacy is designed to prevent rioting and/or party defections. It is also designed to prevent democracy from happening (which HDT noted in year 1849).

Trump threatened the USA with “widespread rioting in the streets” if he was not nominated as the Republican Party’s candidate. Maybe in the long run such rioting would be a good thing.

Er, no, they did not vote. However they still have the money they were paid for their votes, given to them in September 2015 during the “Victory of Hillary” money spew. Do you think the delegates will just keep the money and vote for someone else?

Voters in America recently discovered that they live under an Iranian type of system and didn’t know it. In the primaries, voters participate in some sort of ritualistic placebo voting while party leaders select the candidates. In the general election, the richest and smartest of the elite use money and psychology to brainwash the masses into imagining they have independent opinions and that their votes matter. We call that a republic.”

http://blog.dilbert.com/post/142791072111/ayatollah-so

You are ignoring the most important thing Greg said:

There is no legal requirement that a party nominate someone based on any sort of voting process.

Any individual can run for President, given some very simple qualifications. It has been done.

Any group can get together and call itself a “party”, and pick a candidate by vote or by spin-the-bottle if they like.

Why is this so hard to understand?

Republicans figured out a long time ago that gaining power requires a long-term, locally oriented, strategy. They have done a depressingly good job of it, and Democrats have done a lousy job– or should I say a lazy job?

The expression “proof of concept” comes to mind. Democrats need to demonstrate that promising radical changes can get you elected at the lower levels in swing states. But the evidence so far is to the contrary– I’m still waiting for that promised single-payer system that Vermont was going to institute, for example. Hmmmm….Vermont….hmmmm….