The Editors on the benefits of a long and contested primary.
It’s democratic. True, it would not be ideally democratic if the ’superdelegates’ got together in a smoke-filled room to choose the eventual nominee, but it would be even less democratic if a bunch of retired Iowans, New Hampshites, and perhaps South Carolingians got together in a bunch of retiree-filled rooms and chose the nominee two months ago, which is how it usually goes down. The primary process is carefully tuned to produce a variegated symphony of stupid. At least this one lets everybody vote [...]
(Also, unlike in 1968, the primary issue separating the candidates is ego. Yes, there is another war going on, but the difference between the candidates is just in the degree of their non-committal wetness. Yes, Krugman likes Hillary’s healthcare plan better, but it’s hard to tear apart a convention with an army of tweedy, 50-something academics. And there’s certainly some identity politics solidarity involved here, but, as the Democratic Party has never nominated anyone who wasn’t an old white man, there is a clearly a deep and abiding capacity within the party faithful to vote for someone who isn’t black and/or female. Worse than trying to “burn down the party” and succeeding, from the point of view of the candidate, is to try to burn down the party and have your supporters decide that they really aren’t that into you. AWK-WARD!!)
Bingo.
JFK was an old white man?
I guess it depends on which side of 44 you find yourself on any given day.