This is a rare moment -- perhaps some strange effect of the holiday season -- where I agree with Mr. Hitchens. But allow me to up his ante: what's most "undemocratic" about the nomination is the staggered primary process itself, which gives disproportionate influence to the early voting states. Why has the media and public accepted this as a fair way to nominate a presidential candidate?

Moreover, there is no logical reason that it has to be that way. It seems the process is a holdover from the pre-television, pre-youtube, and pre-private jet era; when stump speeches and debates were not nearly as ubiquitous as they are now; when candidates needed to focus on a few states at a time in order for voters to get to know them intimately. But times have changed. Why is it that the public and media turn a blind eye to this "gangsterization" of the primary process, rather than acknowledge two more logical and fair alternatives: (1) have all states hold primaries on the same day or (2) if the staggered process is absolutely necessary, rotate the pecking order every 4 years, and allow some new states a moment in the early-voting spotlight?

I completely agree with you. And while we're at it, could we also change the law so that the primaries aren't so blasted EARLY in the process? It'd be nice to have an election season that wasn't 24 months long. Not only would that save us all from months of coverage/ads, but it would allow the candidates the luxury of not having to raise millions of dollars to run for office. Maybe we'd actually get a few non-millionaires on the ticket as a bonus.

If the primary process was to be completely legitimate, all the primarys should be done on the same weekend with no press reporting about it. This should be done 2 months prior to the general election with only 30 days of prior campaining allowed so that we would not have to listen a bunch of self serving politicians talking about how good they are and how bad their opponts is for the better part of 2 years. Also on the general election day there should be a complete news blackout about the election until the following day. A last thought about this is why are they going to spend 400 to 500 million dollars for a 400,000. dollar job. All that money could be put to a lot better use.