Exercised

The final Super Tuesday of the primary season takes place tomorrow.  What's at stake?  Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, South Dakota and California.

Or, to put it another way, nothing's at stake.  It doesn't matter how we vote, everything has already been decided.  You can pretend California matters, but even if Sanders wins Clinton goes over the top.

Of course, the parties can do what they want--it's not like they're required to allow the most populous state in the nation to have any say in their process.  It's just hard to believe that a few weeks ago we thought we might matter.

The whole system is pretty silly.  We start with two low-population and not especially representative states.  They're not even major swing states--it's just silly tradition that makes Iowa and New Hampshire matter.

Better would be just a few primary dates with a fair number of widespread states--say 10 or 12--each time.  Would this give the big money and name candidates an advantage?  Yes, but so what?  They've already got an advantage.  Anyway, it would make the process faster.  Would it come up with better candidates?  Well, they probably wouldn't be any worse. (And we know from experience whatever side loses changes their procedural rules each cycle, figuring that's the problem.)

Actually, if we want better candidates, we should probably go back to smoke-filled rooms.  But we don't want that, we want more democracy.  Anyway, it doesn't matter what system you have, there'll always be ways to game the system. I'm just saying make it a feature, not a bug.