Actually, I totally agree. But as for unifying and supporting the Democratic nominee, I just need the Obama supporters, the Obama campaign, and Obama himself...to go first.

I believe Obama is a demagogue. I think he is a narcissist who, without any resume to speak of, actually believes he is qualified for the job.  I see a cult of personality surrounding him, with his supporters believing he can do no wrong.

Sorry, I believe he is George W Bush, an arrogant no-nothing, with a D beside his name.

Further, I will not forgive his sexist, racist campaign, and I sure as hell am not voting for him.  

If so, if Obama is the best candidate, why would they want to change the system?

My gut tells me he cannot even begin to fathom how to deal with all the problems we face, and may just end up making them worse.

Too, if the Dem Congress goes along with him and things don't go well, they'll start to go in 2 years.

There was a time, earlier in this primary, when it was quite clear Markos was thinking pragmatically and laying the groundwork for the site to support whoever the nominee might be.  At some point, like Josh Marshall, he decided to give in to his constituency and move into full-bore "Hillary is a GOP-lite racist" mode.

I used to write diary after diary at Daily Kos, including pro-Obama diaries.  Markos once based a front-page diary on one of my comments.  And as it turns out, I haven't been back there in several months now and I wonder if I ever will.

The statewide assigned proportional allocation of party leaders & elected officials was to ensure that the local regulars could still be assured of a presence at the convention--even if some upstart swept away a large percentage of the vote or caucus.

The superdelegates were established as a fallback to make sure that the party could change the nominee at the convention if a putative "winner" suddenly became dead, a criminal, a closet GOoPer, or a newt.

It coulda', woulda', shoulda' worked.  But, the problem is as per Shakespeare's Marc Antony:

Friends, Democrats, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to dismiss Clinton, not to praise her.
The evil that people do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their campaigns;
So let it be with Clinton. The noble Obama
Hath told you Clinton was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault;
And grievously hath Clinton answer'd it.
Here, under leave of Obama and the rest,--
For Obama is an honorable man;
So are they all, all honorable men,--
Come I to speak at Clinton's fall from grace.
She was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Obama says she was ambitious;
And Obama is an honorable man.

Perhaps a caucuses for picking delegates, but not candidates.

And a national primary season in 3 months, split the country in 4 parts and mix up who goes first.  Take the power away from Iowa and New Hampshire.  

And, dare I say it, winner take all.  Obama got more delegates from the caucus wins than Hillary with the big state wins because of the strange distribution of pledged delegates.

PLEASE give props to this video of Hillary in Florida. It's a passionate, amazing speech in favor of counting Florida.  

It takes no great risk to argue for changes to the system when the DK-preferred candidate is now on the verge of gaining the nomination after slashing and burning through the opposition, inflicting huge wounds within the party, and requesting preferential treatment the entire time.

I will not come together because I know:

a) from a management perspective, the organization will not reform without pressure and all that pressure will be gone if we unify.

b) from a principled perspective, I cannot support an anti-democratic organization.  Dem leadership should have been out front on this issue.

c) from a minority perspective, I cannot support an organization whose leadership stands by while minority group warfare/polarization is used to derail discussion of policy and character.  Dem leadership should have been out front on this issue.

d) from a personal risk analysis perspective, if Obama even comes close to winning, the party takeover will have succeeded and populist policy will be decreased significantly.  Obama is about as middle of the road as you can get, and cannot possibly be expected to lead on populist issues.  As a result, he will implement weak reforms that will hamstring strong reforms and limit dem options in the long run.  In other words, he will fail to play the strong hand the dems have been dealt and in doing so he will limit future options significantly and annoy the working class in the process.  

Because lets face it, once the middle class is covered (reduced costs) and the ultra-poor have their maze to go through for benefits (oh, look, the poor are covered! we care about the poor!), no political capital will exist in reforming to truly serve the poor and provide for the lower-middle classes.

Trust anyone at Daily Kos to work for real primary election reform, after the nastiness, lies, accusations of racism, sexism and general hatred toward fellow Democrats that Markos has encouraged?

These are facts, not bitter utterances..come on we learned all this as children...actions count...
But when we were children, there wasn't much we could do about the bad behavior of our parents, well we're not children anymore....

Affiliation to a party is not a birthright..it has to be earned. Has the party earned my uniquivocal vote?

From Donald:  "It was in their site where I was called a racist for the first time in my life, not to mention GOP troll, casrated eunuch, etc."

______

How about a member of "The Dry Pussy Club"? Or the "Old Hag Women's Studies Set"? Or the "White Bi***es and Hos Contingent"?

Progressives, indeed.

it doesn't matter how many votes there are...it only matters who counts the votes....

And once again, it appears the dems will pull a sure defeat from the jaws of victory.

There is an assumption implicit in this quote that demands of anyone in doubt: "party before country."  Well, I've limped down that path before.  I've voted against my better judgment so many times that my cerebral cortex has shriveled to miniscule proportions.  I don't believe I can afford to lose any more gray cells.  

However...in the past I could say to myself: Now listen Self, Michael Dukakis (or Mondale or Kerry or McGovern) is not the best nominee, but he is surely better than Republican candidate __ (fill in the blank).  But this time I'm not at convinced about that act-of-faith, because Barack Obama has assumed a chameleon mask second to none.  Given his scanty and often non-existent record (Illinois legislature "missing" records, voting "Present" or not voting at all) I have no idea what this man really believes or what he would do to get these beliefs fulfilled.  I don't know if he is as confused about his identity as he appears to be. He's decided he wants to be African-American, when based on genetic fact he is Arab-American.  

I do know that for 20 years he sat and listened to a racist, Black Supremacy doctrinaire preacher.  I do know he associated with, and took money from, radical anti-American William Ayres, slumlord Tony Rezko, and the Iraqi Auchi. I also know that he has waged a campaign that involved calling former prez Bill Clinton a racist while blatantly ignoring, and benefitting from, the mysogynism and lies directed at NY senator Hillary Clinton.  To me, he is a coward for not further debating her and for refusing a revote in Florida and Michigan.

Finally, I deeply believe he will either lose hugely in November, or will prove a disastrous chief executive who will set the party and the country back decades economically.  His naivete and utter lack of experience may well severely endanger this country's security at a particularly delicate and dangerous time.

In my opinion, speaking for me only, He is unqualified to be President. I thought Republicans the biggest idjits on the face of this Earth for voting blindly along party lines for Bush.

I will not do it. I do not fear a McCain presidency. Contrary, in fact I think maybe just maybe the Dems will start doing their jobs.

If they don't so be it. Perhaps the population will wake up.

But I will not reward what has been done this past year.

The only way to be heard is to not vote for their actions.

The only penalty allowed for a state is failure to hold a closed primary and the penalty should be fixed to prevent tampering by the DNC.

Dispose of the primary schedule. Set only a beginning date and allow the states to determine their own primary date.

Award delegates based on population not Congressional districts. Base a state's delegate allotment on population.

One of the disgusting features of the current system is the disproportionate allocation of delegates.

Wyoming got 18 delegates or 1 delegate for every 29,046 people.

California got 441 delegates or 1 delegate for every 82,887 people.

I was always for superdelegates, a safety measure against demagoguery, but it's plain that SDs can be bought as we're seeing clearly in this campaign.

So how ridiculous is the current system?  It's this ridiculous:

Hillary Clinton has won states with a combined population of 185,369,115 people.  Obama has won states with a combined population of 114,497,967
people. Or 61.8% to 31.1%.

The percentage is even more lopsided if caucus states are eliminated from both columns. Clinton 68.3%, Obama 31.7%.

Forty-two percent of Obama's wins have been in caucus states.  Ten percent of Hillary Clinton's wins have been in caucus states.

Kos is flat-out simply following orders from the Obama campaign to change the subject, no more, no less.

I'll let Mark Chestnutt (an appropriately redneck choice, no?) say it for me:

Now is not the time for petty and bitter recriminations. There's been enough bad behavior on both sides, and frankly, I'm getting pretty tired of seeing people act about 30 years or so below their actual age. By August, we need to be making at least some progress in coming back together, or we really WILL lose to McCain and the Neos.

Also yes, the system is screwed up. It's very sad that it took this disaster to wake people up to it. It's been in place for over 25 years in it's present form, and has been bad...it's just that we never actually had a REAL primary since 1982, that was anything other than a coronation.

It seems the feelings became nasty after Edwards dropped out of the race. Obama was my 3rd choice and I'd support Clinton in a heartbeat (she would have been my 4th choice) but any of the Dems would be far better than McCain.

For example, he is pro-"free trade."  (But so is BTD)  He is not a progressive populist as we used that word among John Edwards supporters.

i don't think "class warfare" such as the Two Ameircas ever felt that comnfortable to him, but i may be wrong.  If the Edwards camapign represented the actual labor/left in the Democratic Party (excluding Kucinich), markso never supported it.  

I think Markos is slightly left of center, like Obama and Clinton are, but I suppose that is a minority view here about Obama and Clinton.

I have perceived myself to the left of Markos sicne I first read his posts in September 2006. I do not consider him ot be on the left wing of the Democratic Party.  He's not DLC, but on issues not that left.  On process, he is a bit.

I thought he was too extreme in his rhetoric in opposition to Senator Clinton.  I don't like the taunting in some of his posts, but that drives traffic.  (But I don't read all that many, so maybe I miss a lot).

Even if they do decide to revamp the primary season, they'll stall it for a long time to make it harder to do a real rehaul in time for 2012, the DNC won't be taking advice from bloggers with regards to the rehaul, and whatever grassroots advice they do get will be revised to be more palatable to the higher ups.